I’m waiting for her to serve. Bouncing on the balls of my feet. Knees bent. Ready to spring into action as she tosses the ball for the serve. Geeminee, Criminee! She fires the serve deep near the service T! An ace! Okay, nice start little wonderkin. I walk over to the ad court to receive the next serve. Again, I am ready. This time she aims for my backhand, I lunge for the ball, get my racket on the ball and blast it into the net. 30-love! This can’t be. She is 5’2”. Yes, she is quick as lightening, but how in the hell does she hit the ball so hard? I have got to turn this around. Focus, Golden!
Now she serves the ball right at me. I can’t get in position for a shot. It looks like I was using my racket to protect myself. Heavens! I start feeling like a target at a carnival. Like the weighted milk bottle that has to take whatever the gambler tosses at me. Well, the score was 40-love and this tiny one, showing no emotion, was about to win the teddy bear. I had made comebacks before in games, in sets, and in matches. Can I do it now? She tosses and serves into my backhand with a tremendous angle that makes the ball skid off the line. I scramble. My backhand is okay but not as strong as my forehand. On the run, bending low, I catch it just in time to slice it around the net. Yeah, not over the net but around the net post. It floats down her forehand line. God, what a shot! She never touched it! YES! I was pumped! Okay, the Hoosier hotshot is back! The score is 40-15. With newly found confidence I walk to the deuce court. She tosses. She serves. She hits the T — I never see the ball. Game over.
It was dreamy to think about being the practice partner of a top world-class player. A tennis player and friend, Lornie Kuhle, who had beaten me in 3 sets in Pekin, Illinois, (I must tell you that during that match his buddy, Larry Riggs, sat at the end of the court pinging stones into the screen and all I could hear were the frickin’ stones) went on to being a traveling practice partner for Jimmy Connors as well as the push behind the “Battle of the Sexes” match, and the movie, between Billie Jean King and Larry’s famous dad, Bobby Riggs. Imagine, going from country to country, being paid to hit balls with one of the best. Imagine. Well, later on I got to be a practice partner. No pay, but it was something. Here goes that tale.
Before enlisting in the Army in 1964, I found myself in Newport Beach, California. Tennis was taking a back seat in my life, but I was still hitting, and I got linked up with a young French player needing a practice partner, as she was beginning a career on the women’s professional tour. Earlier I wrote in jest about Indiana not spawning great tennis players. Well, it is true! We were mediocre. The truth is that no tennis player from Indiana ever won a major championship. We had no David Letterman types on the tennis court. He was a major winner on his own court — from Indiana.
Back to my difficult task of assisting this tiny French player. I was one of several persons she practiced with weekly. This gave her a variety of styles of play to practice against. What did my style have to offer her? Steadiness — I just kept getting the ball back. Not fancy, not dynamic, just consistently returning the ball. I was a human ball machine. My style might be likened to a Mike Pence style ( another Hoosier) just being there and making key decisions during key moments.
What was amazing about this pint sized girl, 19 at the time, was the power she generated. I could take her wide on the forehand side and she would not only get there, but would crush the ball down the line with power. My hardest serve (again Indiana standards) she attacked and if I followed the good serve to the net she would drive it past me repeatedly.
Week after week we drilled. Cross-court drives on forehands and backhands. 20, 30, 40 strokes — just keep it going. Down the line drives — just keep it in — don’t aim for the lines, just consistently keep the ball in the vicinity of the line and you’ll have winners. We practiced volleys, we practiced overheads, serves and returns — repetition — just kept hitting balls. She was so good and it was fun for me. We didn’t play points until the game described above, which was the only game we played over the weeks we worked together. This reminds me of all the years I drilled with my son, Peter. He and I never played points until one time he asked if I wanted to play a set. Sure. He beat me 6-4! It seems best that I just serve as a human ball machine without attaching points.
There are untold levels of the game, from public parks to Wimbledon. Here I was, at 23 or so, and a fair Midwestern player. Sometimes people would remark about my textbook strokes. I had practiced them for years in front of mirrors and I internalized the photos I saw of the pros in World Tennis Magazine. Yeah, I could hit a ball. But how this mighty mite could leave me standing in my tracks bewildered me. She was good, she was gifted, she was hungry. That’s the difference — hunger. I did not have the hunger, the drive of a Jimmy Connors, Serena Williams (nor the father), and Novak Djokovic. My French friend wanted more. After a few weeks she was off to Australia to play a few tournaments, including the Australian Open,
I followed her in World Tennis Magazine as they printed the draw and results for all professional tournaments. It was fun to see how she faired. So, so. She would make it to the 2nd or 3rd rounds, there you go — levels of the game. She was blown away by different levels. And if you think about, if she was blown away by others and she could blow me off the court — well, I would not even make the qualifiers in women’s tournaments. Take that, you Hoosier hotshot!