I am officially a tennis bore. I play four times a week, more if I can. A day without tennis feels somehow sad. I talk about it all the time. I wept today when Rafa and Federer were knocked out of the Oz Open. I am reading Andre Agassi’s autobiography. To top it all, last night as I was falling asleep I kept waking myself my jerking my arm. Yes, I was hitting a forehand (down the line) in my sleep.
“My first wife became a golf bore, and you are becoming a tennis bore,” Rupes said to me the other day. ‘What’s wrong with me?”
Well, I’m not sure he should blame himself. I was mad about tennis way back when Virginia Wade won Wimbledon, but it is only in the past two months that it has really taken hold of me. I think one of the reasons this has happened is that I met Rafa, and Federer, and also that I can finally hit the bloody ball properly.
Leo of course is already a football bore, aged only seven. Every night before he goes to sleep he goes around his room saying goodnight to the various Chelsea players on his walls. “Goodnight Frank,” he says. “Goodnight Didier, goodnight John Terry.”
I am not quite that bad yet, but I do have a picture of a topless Rafa hidden on my filing cabinet that I sometimes say good morning to when I get into work. But I don’t think anyone has noticed…..
Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2011
Hi Helena, sounds like you’ve had to take the ‘if you can’t beat them, then join them’ approach when it comes to sport in your household.
Although we all know that golf is REALLY boring whereas tennis is a great game!
So long as you don’t have posters of players on your walls and say goodnight to them, I don’t see that Rupert has anything to complain about.
Catherine