My Brief Stint as a Professional Tennis Player

About a week ago Curtis and I ran into a Belgian girl we knew at the hostel who was on her way to meet up with some friends of ours.

“Come join! We’re on our way to mumblemumbleinafrenchaccent!”

“Oh cool! What’s the place called?” I asked, hoping this would clarify where they were headed, as I’d completely missed what she’d said.

She looked confused. “I don’t know, does it have a name? It’s just right around the corner, come on!”

“Sure!” I said enthusiastically, because at this point there really isn’t much we wouldn’t want to explore in Melbourne.

On the way to the elevators, she turned around and beamed, “I just love tennis!”

Ohhhh…. TENNIS. Ok, Cool!

So six of us trekked to the nearby tennis courts, which did have a name—the Rod Laver Arena (anybody who knows anything about tennis would understand who that was, but me? I had no clue)—and which was, in fact, the home of the Australia Open.

But at the front desk, the receptionist informed us that unfortunately, because of a regional tournament, all the rental tennis courts were booked for the day.

We were crushed. Especially because it had been quite an ordeal to get there.

“Just around the corner” turned into half an hour, in which time we managed to sortakinda cause a car crash by jay-walking. Except, it wasn’t our fault! I swear! Some crazy yahoos were barreling down the road in a white van and we waited for them to safely pass before crossing the street, at which time they tried (successfully) to scare the bajesus out of us by letting out a piercing scream as soon as we set foot in the road. But karma is a funny thing, because as soon as they screeched at us we heard another sound: the screeeeeech of squealing tires, and a CRASH, as the van went careening into the car in front of it, stopped at a red light.

Thankfully, no one was harmed and there were several bystanders who offered their help to the lady in the now-crunched car, so we went on our merry way, a bit shook up and vowing to use the crosswalk on the way home.

But it seemed, because of the ongoing tennis tournament, that our journey had been for not. “Unless…” the receptionist trailed off, click-clicking on her computer, “you wouldn’t mind playing in the show court.”

The show court? For no extra cost? As in… one of the three main arenas? As in… where people sit in chairs and cheer on real tennis players playing real tennis? Um, no we don’t mind.

Now unfortunately, there was a bit of a picture-deleting fiasco last night on the pub crawl (in my idiocy/intoxication, I thought I’d uploaded the tennis pictures onto my computer and proceeded to delete nearly half of them… and almost cried this morning when I figured it out) so I don’t have the super-awesome picture of us walking into the arena and the glare of the sunlight looking like a million eager fans were taking our photo.

Buuuut, I had taken so many that there were still tons on the card, so I’ll have to make do.

This is an aerial image of the Rod Laver Arena, and Dave and Becky are pointing out the stadium we rented for an hour.

If only we could have rented fans to fill the seats... 

Here’s our “family photo” from the end of the day. Curtis was bouncing a ball on the tennis racket to show off his mad skillz, but instead he ended up looking like Bobo the Clown because the self-timer went off at just the right wrong moment…

From left to right: Me, Curtis, Becky, Hinnerk, Sophie, and Dave.

All in all, the day’s discovery (other than don’t jay-walk and don’t forget to upload your photos before you delete them, dummy) was that I’m really quite crap at tennis. Especially serving. I can’t seem to understand that when you serve the ball you are just aiming for the opposite side of the court, not the East Coast of New Zealand.

But it was SO. MUCH. FUN.

Oh, and another lesson learned? Even your armpits need sunscreen. Ouchy Ouch Ouch.

With love (and peeling underarms),

the traveling stahr…