Everyone For Tennis

Oh the heady days of summer when park courts overflow for two weeks and all the little kids want to be tennis pros when they grow up because Wimbledon fever and Henmania are here (only it might be a little bit split this year because of Euro 2004). Rained off for the first two days so far.

I just can't muster the enthusiasm for it that I used to have. We don't have Ivan Lendle to cheer for anymore - that tortured clay-ace who always tried so hard and failed to make the grade on grass (big fav of my mother's after Bjorn Borg and McEnroe).

Passing Crouch End on the bus. Stopped at the Broadway. A chap got up to get off - wearing short shorts and a zip-up trackie top with the collar up, brown legs, a flash tennis racquet poking out the top of his sports bag. As he passes the passengers waiting to get on he spies a fellow tennis enthusiast - brown plastic bottle of cider in a plastic bag with three green tennis balls, obviously pissed and carrying the most ancient wooden racquet I've seen in ages. Up-to-date tennis player does a double take a broad grin spreading across his face as he walks off into the wet night. Pissed tennis player staggers onto the bus and sits down, broad grin on his face (methinks its the cider talking because he certainly didn't clock the other tennis chap).