How to improve your tennis game: Buy a new skirt

 I wasn't sure I could watch the US Open without fans, and with knowing that Donna and I wouldn't be going this year. But I quickly got into watching the tennis and finding it interesting to see the players watching each other and wandering around doing all the other activities in the bubble.

At Holyoke Canoe Club

It was right about this time that the elastic in my tennis skirts gave way.  I kept jacking them up like an old man hitching up his pants. And the colorful skirts and tops that many of the women were wearing caught my eye. The design was like paint brush strokes. I put in the relevant keywords (Nike skirt US Open blue and pink) and the Nike US Open skirt came up. 

I thought it was just an interesting, colorful skirt, but then I read that the Nike look at the US Open was more than that. Marija Zivlak of Women’s Tennis Blog wrote,

"Nike is reviving Andre Agassi’s rebel style in the 2020 iteration of the ATP icon’s Challenge Court collection that stirred up the tennis fashion world thirty years ago. Using coquille board, torn paper and snippets of the original design, Nike re-created the legendary looks with more modern, functional fabrics.

"The bold collection includes tanks, cropped shirts, skirts, shorts and jackets, all in neon and surf/skate-like geometric patterns that bring back the vibes of Agassi’s groundbreaking on-court style."

When I looked up the skirt online, I saw that I could get it for a discount at Tennis Warehouse. But in keeping with the "shop small" theme that I already follow and that the Open promoted, I got it at the tennis store in Fairfield after another fabulous day at the beach. 

"Maybe it will improve my game," I said to the salesperson.

Well, actually, it did.

I had this thought about my game:

For all the years I've been playing, and all the lessons I've taken, maybe my game should be a little better. 

But for all the days I spent almost dying, maybe my game should be worse...or maybe I shouldn't have a game at all.

Therefore, I am probably right where I am supposed to be.

Also, I'm having fun and getting exercise. When I first came back (multiple times) and went to clinics, I could barely keep the ball in play. I remember feeling kinda bad that I was gumming it up for the other players and feeling embarrassed that I couldn't do what I wanted to do. Now I get asked to sub in groups and feel like a valued member of the tennis community. And in the four days that I played this week, my foot didn't hurt!

Just to make sure it stays that way, I went out to Shutesbury, to the foot fix-it guy Ken Holt, and got a new pair of orthotics. My last pair was three years old. I was using a pair that was even older that got mixed up with the three-year-old pair. Ken is not seeing people in his office; you drop off your old orthotics and he makes the new pair based on it. But I wanted to make sure he was working off the right pair, so I met him in his driveway (at a distance of course) and showed him both pairs. I couldn't tell, but he said it was easy to see which was the newer pair. 

With our democracy at stake, foot problems and tennis level ponderings seem very shallow, so, I'll just say that although I found door-knocking easier when we were in the real world, I am doing some phone banking. I wrote postcards to Florida voters to encourage them to vote by mail, but that part is over. And the price of the shirt to go with the skirt was too much so I didn't get it, though who knows, maybe my game would go up another level if I matched.