A tennis community for the recreational player
This is too good not to share.
A friend and LYB reader forwarded my Rafa dream post to a fellow tennis player and psychologist, Beth Freed. In response, Beth offered up her professional analysis of the dream, starting with my half-assed remark in the comments section about flip-flops signifying an abrupt change of mind:
If you’ve been paying attention to this blog, you know I have a celebrity crush on Rafa. (Every marriage establishes its own set of rules. In mine, I’m allowed one celebrity crush. My husband isn’t allowed any.)
So maybe it isn’t surprising that Rafa appeared in my dream last week. Sounds hot, right? Alas, as with so much in middle age, it turned out to be a major disappointment.
Here’s what happened: A friend and I buy tickets to a tennis tournament. For some reason—covid, maybe?—few people are in attendance. We score courtside seats in rickety metal bleachers, looking right along the baseline where Rafa is playing.
A ball rolls to the side of the court nearest me. There isn’t a ball kid in sight, so I decide to be helpful. I stand up, and it’s here that we get our first good look at what I’m wearing: a floppy pink hat, shorts intended for a much younger person, and orange flip-flops. I climb down from the bleachers as gracefully as one can in flip-flops and a big hat and noisily flap my way over to the ball. I toss it to Rafa. It’s a terrible toss, much as it would be in real life. It’s way off the mark and dribbling along the ground. Continue reading “My Mysterious Rafa Dream”
If you’ve been watching the French Open—and if you haven’t, why not?—you’ll have noticed that most of the players are wearing the same outfits they wore at the US Open. A few aren’t, and a few didn’t play the American major, but in general there’s too much overlap to warrant a Fashion Face-off for the French.
I do have a fashion-related question, though: What color is Rafa’s outfit? Continue reading “The Rafa Blues”
After the fashion snooze-fest of Wimbledon, I’m loving my US Open men, and not just for the outfits. I may be getting a bit cougarish in my middle age. (I know–gross, right?)
Let’s get the little yellow ball rolling with our stud muffin nominees. Continue reading “Fashion Face-off: US Open Best-Dressed Man for 2019”
(***Or, Tuesday Tennis Togs Take-down?)
Shame on me for letting our worst-dressed award day pass by without a poll. Saying I was busy is a poor excuse because snarking at fugly clothes should be my top priority, even more than improving my tennis game.
Let’s not waste any more time, then. Our nominees for worst-dressed player at the French Open are [drum roll]: Continue reading “Friday Fashion Face-off***: French Open Worst-Dressed Award”
Finally!
On Sunday, Rafael Nadal finally won his first clay court title of the year–in fact, his first title on any surface this year.
And–finally–we have a new blog post! I have been remiss. Inexcusably so, but let me offer some excuses anyway. First, I was taking a novel-writing class, so I was spending my creative juices elsewhere.
And two, I just wasn’t feeling it. I wasn’t sure I had the bloggerly chops to tackle some bigger topics. I wasn’t sure the blog even mattered–to me or to anyone else. Out of nowhere, I was having a mini-crisis in confidence.
Which brings us back to Rafa. (You know everything eventually goes back to Rafa.) Continue reading “Confidence Crises”
Noooooo!!!!!!!
That’s the cry heard around the world today as we learned that Rafa Nadal has finally gotten engaged to longtime girlfriend Xisca Perello. (Actually, he popped the question back in May, but they kept it secret until now…which is kind of weird.)
I haven’t been this distraught since Bjorn Borg married. Why do my tennis men forsake me?!
I’ll pull myself together and be back with our Worst-Dressed fashion face-off on Friday.
Can I rant for a minute? (Of course I can. It’s my blog.) I have a bill due on the 22nd. That’s Tuesday. Today is Friday, so four days away.
If I send my payment through my bank’s bill pay service, it won’t arrive until Wednesday. Five days for something that’s fully automated. If I sent it via snail mail, the post office would deliver my original handwritten check to its destination on Monday, Tuesday at the latest. Human beings can carry my piece of paper from Massachusetts to Delaware–for a mere 49 cents–faster than computers can electronically move the money.
Unless, of course, I want to pay extra. Then my bank can just about manage to keep up with the post office.
Meanwhile, in completely unrelated news this week, Bank of America posted record earnings for 4Q 2018. It’s enough to make me very cranky.
Let’s cheer ourselves up with some men in shorts. Continue reading “Friday Fashion Face-off: Australian Open’s Best Dressed Man”
Bring up a mental image of Maria Sharapova when she’s in between points. What’s she doing? If you watch enough professional tennis, you know she has her back turned to the court and she’s fiddling with her racquet strings.
And Rafael Nadal before he serves? Even casual tennis fans are familiar with his elaborate pre-serve choreography–a tug on the shorts followed by an unvarying sequence of touches (left shoulder, right shoulder, nose, left ear, nose, right ear.)
What’s the point of these quirks? Are they just silly superstition? Continue reading “Ritual and Superstition”
The U.S. Open is well under way, which can mean only one thing. It’s time to pick our best-dressed man of the slam!
I thought choosing the best dressed for Wimbledon would be hard, what with the color restriction and all. But I’m actually finding this slam a bit tougher. No one is truly standing out for me, but we’ll just have to muddle through with what we have. Continue reading “Friday Fashion Face-off: U.S. Open Best-Dressed Man Award”