No grand slams, plenty of age
You won’t be getting this group off the tennis courts anytime soon.
Novak Djokovic won his 24th Grand Slam title Sunday. Scan the headlines and everyone mentions his age.
It’s true that he’s the oldest MALE1 winner at 36. It’s also true that the people I play tennis with have not won any major tennis tournaments. But if you want to talk age, he doesn’t even come close.
I’m not sure if this is more of a testament to the longevity of the people playing or of tennis itself. It has always like to bill itself as the sport for all ages. The people I play with concur.
In case you’re thinking that we’re all two steps from using a walker, allow me to point out that one of the over 80s climbed Mount Fuji this year. She can also run down nearly every ball, is rarely overpowered by a serve or cracking return and can hit every corner of the court pretty consistently. She may not be quite as flexible as Djokovic but if she told me she could do the splits, I would believe her.,
The other over-80 player didn’t take up tennis until she was nearly 60. Make the mistake of serving softly to her, and she’ll reward you (or actually herself) with a return that will fall two feet over the net just inside the line. Over anticipate it and she’ll lob it over your head instead.
Even if they weren’t still playing quality tennis, these two, like every other tennis player I spend time with, are fun to be around. They laugh at their mistakes. They forgive everyone else’s. Today one of them didn’t get to a short ball and promptly blamed it (with a big smile on her face) on being “a year older.” I could hardly serve I was laughing so hard.
“You always want to win. That is why you play tennis, because you love the sport and try to be the best you can at it.” — Roger Federer, still my favorite tennis player
And in case you were wondering, we all play to win no matter how much time we spend laughing on and off the court or whether we’re another year older or slower or whether there never were or will be Grand Slam wins for us. We are on the way to the grand slam of aging.
Billie Jean King beats the guys once again. She won her last Grand Slam singles title at age 39. Martina Navratilova was almost 50 when she won her last Grand Slam title for mixed doubles.
For sure, and I can remember a few times when I played my best and lost that turned out to be fun, too.
When you play your best and lose, you know how good you are. When you win, you can never be sure.
My assumptions run to victories and excellence, but I also remember some very specific fun groups that I played with consistently—and none of us remembered the outcomes by the end of the evening.
I love competition at any age and really enjoyed this piece. Keep up the good work 🤩