Tennis and the Moment

It was becoming increasingly difficult for him to find opponents to play tennis with. Some of his regular partners had already embraced the idea that “a timely retreat is a victory,” while others had diversified their sporting activities and were far less consistent than he was, or simply more accustomed to jumping from one sport to another.

Faced with this reality, he turned to his own family circle. His children, trained through hours spent on the fronton court, had always regarded it as the foundational sport — not necessarily chosen, but a familiar part of the household’s recreational landscape.

In my case, the times I played were so sporadic that I hardly saw it as a sporting habit; rather, as a skill acquired during the idle hours of Sundays at the Club.

He, however, was not willing to give it up, and any half-trained opponent would do. And so, what began as occasional matches slowly turned into a habit. Sporadic invitations gave way to recurring appointments, until they became part of the weekly calendar. The truth is, I had gone more than a couple of decades without playing. So I took it up again with a certain reluctant weariness, but with the firm conviction not to put up too much resistance to his enthusiasm, which I did not share.

Today, I see it differently. I admire his determination to keep going down to the court despite his bad eye, and despite a wrist injury that forced him to play his backhand with two hands after he had already turned ninety. I admire his relentless way of not letting a single thing pass, or the observations he still feels compelled to make about my own game when I miss the mark, expecting from me the same effort and commitment he demands of himself.

Now I see it and, today,... I notice.

He wears a light-colored cap, walks slowly between points, and picks up the balls without hurry, as though he had finally learned that life does not improve by running after it.

When I see him on the other side of the net, under a sun already pushing past thirty degrees, I set aside the oppressive heat typical of late morning and realize that the simple fact of being there, of having this moment, is a sign — an invitation to take heart and enjoy these rare, singular moments.

On the court, he does not seem to notice my lack of focus. He just plays. He grumbles and scolds himself.

As he does every day.

As I watch him, I think that tennis seems like an unlikely place for contemplation. The ball travels too fast… and, at times, too high. You have to measure distances, correct direction, adjust heights, calculate trajectories, and run across the length and breadth of the court. The body moves, trying to absorb so many instructions, so well known and yet, most of the time, so poorly incorporated.

But at some point, without warning, you have lifted your arm high enough and the ball has cleared the net, and you find yourself watching your own game as if you were just another spectator.

I could not say whether it happens first in the mind or in the body. Perhaps in neither. Perhaps in that strange territory where everything ceases to exist… where effort disappears, the arm moves on its own, and the feet know where to go before you have even decided to move.

The ball seems more predictable than usual. It is exactly where you expect it to be.

And for a few strokes, you enter the bullfighter’s trance.

A backhand.

Another.

A forehand that flies! His reflexes surprise me!.

The next ball arrives with perfect cadence. There is no longer technique, nor thought.

There is no possible correction because, in this state, error itself does not exist. Everything flows with an unfamiliar naturalness.

Perhaps great players live there often. Perhaps that is the secret that keeps them on the courts, tournament after tournament.

The rest of us only visit that space once in a while, like someone who finds an open door in the middle of a path and, for a few seconds, catches sight of a landscape that does not belong to them.

They are strange, fleeting moments.

While the body plays, the mind loosens.

Forgotten images appear. A bicycle too big for my age. The smell of summer mornings.

The voices of children speaking all at once, tumbling over one another.

Sensations return, without order or reason.

And, for an instant, everything seems to occupy its rightful place.

The stroke.

Time.

The light.

The air.

The small battles each person wages with themselves.

Everything is suspended.

Then you look up.

An exclamation, foreign to your thoughts, has broken the silence:

“Damn, I’m lazy today!”

And the spell is broken.

You return to the world.

You look at the father who has just spoken those words and remember that he will soon be ninety-two.

The thirty-degree heat does not affect him. He grows frustrated by the lack of movement in his own feet. He cannot understand it.

Then you imagine yourself on the court at his age. And the image seems absurd.

Even if it meant losing the muses, the ecstasy of mental flight, and even if you were never again to enter that bullfighter’s trance. Right there, you would ask, as a gift, to stretch this precise moment a little longer, to hold it as a still photograph in your tennis memory.

You understand that the grace of going down to the court was never in the masterful shots, but in the grasping of a memory that always seems elusive.

CFC