BACK WHEN I was an infants-school kid who daydreamed about rugby league, my father would say to me: “Learn to play tennis, boy. It's the most socially useful game.”
Though at the time I didn't fully grasp his meaning, I got the gist. On weekend afternoons, Dad relished trading net-skimming groundstrokes with friends and neighbours on the grass court at the top of our street, their hitting interspersed with long spells in deck chairs, chatting and chortling away while sipping on cocktails. Such a civilised pastime was contingent upon being a semi-competent player, he was telling me.
So, at age nine, I started taking group lessons run by the Cameron-Souter Tennis School, which was spearheaded by two no-nonsense women. And I fell in
