Game of the Week: Tennis

I'm currently watching the first round of the U.S. Open tennis tournament on ESPN.  Tennis has always seemed much easier on television than it really is to play.  I learned to play tennis in my late teens in the early-to-mid 1970s and never played or practiced enough to achieve a reasonable level of competency in it.  I remember running mile after mile in after-school track practice in high school and then later going out to a nearby tennis court with my sister and, after practicing our serves a little, just volleying the ball back and forth to get better with our forehand and backhand swings...no matter how tiring the running had been just an hour or so earlier.  And simply hitting the ball back and forth over the net...no one keeping score...has always been how I've enjoyed "playing tennis".  Yet I remember taking an introductory tennis course at college in the summer of 1975 to fulfill some of my physical education requirements (back when colleges had physical education requirements).  I remember my teacher, who seemed like he thought he was a real cool badass dude, sneering at me with disgust as I "aced" my serving exam by meekly placing each one squarely in the correct place...with absolutely no force or spin on the ball.  Yet I knew how to get an "A" and got it...not that I was any better in it afterwards.  No, after a humiliating game in 1979 I played with a college friend from Brazil in which he thoroughly demolished me and thought no one could play that badly, I put away my racket and would subsequently use tennis balls to play fetch and keep-away with my dogs.  Yet I do enjoy watching tennis on television...with one exception. For some inexplicable reason (maybe they think they're intimidating their opponent), certain professional women players from Eastern Europe (like Maria Sharapova, Victoria Azarenka, and Simona Halep) have this extremely annoying habit of giving loud voice to their exhalations each time they hit the ball, resulting in a horrible sounding sequence of grunts and chirps with each volley. It's gotten so that not only to I automatically root against these players, but I also mute the sound to avoid hearing that crap.  Oh well, maybe some people think what they do is cool...you never know what makes someone think something's cool.  And in the late 1970s when I was making the transition from adolescence to adulthood, there were two activities that people overwhelmingly (but not me) thought were cool: disco dancing and tennis.  They've both declined over the years as participatory activities, but I've always enjoyed watching a good tennis match...and I think I'd better leave my opinion on disco unsaid...