Caroline O'Donoghue: Tennis —the speed of it, the physics, the fact that you could get hit in the face at any moment
Caroline O'Donoghue
I started tennis lessons this week. I think it’s the last square on my lockdown bingo card, right above ‘baking’, right below ‘becoming suddenly obsessed with your own memories because you’re not making any new ones / waking up at 2am to Google an old friend’s baby sister who must be in her 20s now’.
Tennis lessons come under that elusive heading of ‘new skill’. I have avoided ‘new skill’ for as long as possible. Let’s be honest, who actually likes learning a new skill? It’s a situation ripe for humiliation, not to mention expense and faff. New skills usually come with new equipment, and if the skill is truly new to you, you will be plunged into a world of uncertainty, online bargains, and unsolicited advice. It’s that classic dilemma: do you spend money on good quality stuff (in my case, a tennis racquet) that will give you the best start, or do you buy some cheap crap and wait to see if you actually like the thing you’re learning to do?
I have asked three tennis people in my life “How much does a good racquet cost?”, and the answers have been a) £100 b) £30 c) don’t buy a racquet at all, use this old Kleenex box with elastic bands over it until you get comfortable.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Why tennis? The truth is, I’ve always felt weird about tennis.
I feel about tennis the way amnesia patients in films feel about their lost lives: I am utterly switched off until I pass a tennis court and then I’m overcome with emotion and longing. My boyfriend has spent years observing these fits of passion, and has had enough of them.
“Just learn to play tennis, for Christ’s sake,” he says.
“Oh no,” I whisper. “I couldn’t do that.”
“Why?”
“It looks… very hard.”
It does, though. It does look hard! The speed of it, the physics, the fact that you could get hit in the face at any moment. The fact that there’s nowhere to hide, physically or spiritually. If you are bad, everyone can see straight away. There is nothing a writer fears more than exposure, which is funny considering we’re always being asked to write for it.
“Why tennis?” Gavin presses.
“Why do you always get in such a state about tennis?”
I go all withdrawn. “It’s in my family.”
This is actually true. My grandmother and great aunt on my father’s side were both tennis pros. The former played for Munster, the latter in junior Wimbledon. My parents both play, and all three of my siblings have some measure of competence at the sport. I am the first O’Donoghue in 100 years who has never picked up a racquet, and you get haunted by a thing like that.
“There’s something else,” Gavin pushes. “Something you’re not telling me.”
He is right. There is.
“In books,” I say shyly. “There are always characters who go to a big country house for the weekend, and at some point everyone plays tennis.”
“Right.”
“And if someone can’t play tennis, then the other characters think they’re really anaemic and awful.”
“So… you’re worried that one day you might be in a posh house and the other, fictional people there won’t respect you because you can’t play tennis?”
“Yes.”
Eventually enough was enough and I signed up for lessons. The first one was on Saturday. I was, of course, terribly nervous. There were eight of us in all, everyone shy and embarrassed. We each checked with one another that we really were beginners and not one of those psychopaths that go to beginner classes to feel superior. Everyone was between 28 and 45, and like every class in the history of recreational classes, there was one man. Why is there always only one man? Whether it’s a book club, a tennis lesson, or a yoga class, the One Man phenomenon is so puzzling to me. It makes me feel bad for the single women who go to these things to meet men. I always call him ‘Juan’. Juan Man.
I am teamed up with Juan, as we are the only two that haven’t come in a pair. Every other woman there has dragged her sister or best friend along. Each team is put in a square of the court and told to bounce a tennis ball to one another and catch it. No racquets, just hands.
Eventually, we get given our racquets. We bat the ball within the small square. Then the square gets bigger, and bigger again. Eventually, we are playing tennis.
I am not displaying my best traits when we play tennis. I am clumsy and I zone out when the instructor talks. I forget to keep score. I do the terrible Woody Allen thing: of not just doing badly, but narrating my own doing badly, making jokes about my co-ordination, eyesight and hayfever. Everyone finds me exhausting. But I get there. And by the end of the hour, I can rally, I can serve, and if I get invited to a country house, I can at least have a good old college try at playing. I won’t be that anaemic in-bred cousin, quivering in the library.
I leave feeling happy, and energised, and for once like I’m using my body for something other than eating crisps and walking the dog. I’ve paid for five more lessons, so I’m standing at the precipice of a new hobby, a new skill, and something to talk to my dead grandmother about.
Reader, I cannot stress enough: if I can swallow my pride and my lack of co-ordination, you can do it too. Whatever hobby is haunting you, book a bloody lesson and just get on with it.
- Caroline O'Donoghue is a Cork-born writer living in London. She is the author of and
