Tennis chimp

Was reminiscing old times, especially my tennis court days.Was a serious contender at one point of time and read and re read the Tennis Magazine, played and replayed recorded Tennis matches. Right from the Lendl-Wilander era to Edberg-Becker till Sampras-Agassi.Like any clever clever chap, I wanted to analyse the games of these greats and inculcate their strong shots into mine. Did I say inculcate, nay then, wanted to ape them.

The result, yup u guessed it. lemme dwell on the some of the shots I was enamoured with.

Service
Stefan Edberg’s arched back, legs parked parallel, seven o’ clock service. That was the first one. Prepared by viewingfour replays, reading the Tennis Magazine’s section on serve like Edberg some half a dozen times and finally practiced under the 3’o clock scorching sun using my shadow as the guide.
Over time, Sampras’s service caught my fancy. I immediately altered my stance to the slight drooped, head and chin up complete with the tongue hanging out stance, and tried the last minute shoulder power generated serve. Bingo it worked, but I couldn’t play long. I used the injury too and said I had a ligament tear, blue blooded Sampras right.In between those two tried following servers like Ivanisevic, Rusedski and yes, Steffi Graf too.

Forehand
I stuck to my own forehand till I saw Mark Philippoussis and then tried the body weight forward shoulder rotating forehand, only to give up. It turned into a damp squib. Unfair right, cos Philippoussis’s did generate loads and loads of power.

Backhand
First aped Sergi Bruguera’s unorthodox backhand—hold the racquet upright like an axe and whip it in the last minute with a slight hint of topspin.And then Sampras made Wimbledon his home and I wanted his one-hand backand. Precisely during that time I read a report on how Sampras changed from double fist back hand to the one-hand and what wonders it did to his junior rankings. I promptly adopted it and was whacked out of the court by the youngest kid.Then got rational and adopted Kafenikov’s double-fist backhand.

Volley
who else Boris back Becker, but I fine tuned it to exclude the acrobatics.

Overhead
Sampras ‘in the air ‘overhead. Only that I couldn’t jump.