Traurig Tennis...

Look closely and you can see a sadly dissatisfied face

Something I knew before coming here, was that no matter what cool experiences we'd have or amazing things we'd see, I'd miss a lot about Good Ol' Murica. One of those things (besides having an insinkerator and sane trash disposal practices) is my beloved tennis. Since my amazing friends threw my tennis goodbye party on December 5, I've played exactly TWO hours of tennis here. :( In PV I played in my B1 league, mixed doubles, Beaches League, and if I'd not moved here, I would've been a part of our USTA 3.5 team too, in addition to working two days a week at the PVIC tennis shop. Tennis is a major part of my life and with all of the amazing friendships I've gained from it, a major source of my happiness, (and exercise). My soul literally hurts from this complete deletion from my life.

It started with the ridiculously long shipping time of my racquets. I shipped them out the morning of 12/6 for $128. They finally arrived on 12/30, a good week after my other shipments (some of which I sent out later) arrived. Silver lining, despite their tour of the US and deplorable condition of the box, they were completely unscathed. Woohoo!!

Months ago I started joining every FB page related to Wiesbaden that I could. These pages, such as "Official Americans in Wiesbaden" have been a great source of information for me. I posted in the early fall asking about tennis here, and made my first tennis friend, Rina. She moved here from Orlando and totally gets the FL tennis culture. She warned me ahead of time to keep my expectations low. But she's been SO kind and welcoming to me (and she's a great player!), and has introduced me to my first 2 hours of tennis here!

So one thing about tennis in Germany that's BETTER than tennis at home is that they have indoor courts. With the @#$& weather here, indoor is the only way to go. The indoor courts here are comprised of a carpet (I never even knew that was a thing) that requires special shoes (Teppichschuhe). Who knew!? I purchased my shoes asap and was able to meet Rina for an hour to play. Courts here are booked for one hour only. We were supposed to play doubles but two couldn't make it so it was just us. It was great to hit and probably better that I wasn't trying to really play out actual points. It's hard to get used to playing in these conditions. With the carpet, I found the ball bounces straight up, so you really have to move to the ball. But then the indoor lights, bright carpet colors, dark net and dark background wall color made it really hard (for me at least) to judge the depth, trajectory, timing of the ball. Then once you get used to running into the ball (by outdoor hartru standards), that's when the ball skids out on the bounce. I didn't hate the carpet though. It's weird. But I guess it's just a new challenge.

Yesterday I shared a lesson with Rina. Our coach, Neil, is an older affable English gentleman. I liked him a lot. He thinks I'm a $%&* player though lol. As well he should. I kept telling him I'd played 1 hour out of the last 40 days and I'm not used to this surface. He was like "ok?" My forehand (my lone weapon usually) was TERRIBLE. My timing is still completely off. Oh well. At least I got to play some drills. Bonus was that it was only 25 Euro for the hour. Way cheaper than ANYTHING at home. I'd asked my friend if we could book court time before or after our lesson, and it was a no-go. I guess courts were all booked? And she said that the local women she plays with, while they're friendly, are all over the place as far as level, and no one wants to play more than a couple of times per week (for just one hour). I mean, at home, if you can't play at least 90min, we don't even bother lol! I know my FL tennis friends and I love our sport, and can't get enough of it and constantly want to improve. That's not so here.

So right now I'm playing as a guest of my friend (for free, which is nice). But I need to join this club so I can take control of my own court booking and at least play with my girls and Case. The indoor facility is T2, and it's associated with Blau-Weiss (Blue-White) tennis club, which is the outdoor (red clay!) tennis courts in a different location. I've been told that they have league play at Blau-Weiss from May-June. It also goes by age, so I'd be in the 40-49 group. Not sure how good the ladies are on these teams? Can I even make the team? Guess I'll find out.

I feel like I must be missing something with the tennis here. Germany has produced some of the top tennis stars in the world, so there's GOT to be some kind of tennis culture. And I just don't know how it's possible to play tennis and NOT love it and want to play as much as possible. I've never met a half-hearted tennis player, no matter the level. And in Frankfurt, there's the Boris Becker International Tennis Academy (probably like a Saddlebrook/IMG place?) but I think that's for elite juniors, not mediocre 46 year old women. Anyway...I hope I'm wrong and just have yet to find my tennis pot o gold here. At worst, I'll play for maybe one hour, once a week and it will further drive home how absolutely BLESSED we are in PV. What a wonderful, privileged life we live. And I can't wait to get back to it. <3

A miracle my racquets were unscathed!

Outside the indoor courts. I think there are 6 courts.

Entrance to T2 tennis club

Indoor courts. I had to take the pic quickly as I was worried some old ladies would yell at me

Directly across the street from T2! Vineyards in the distance. Not sure what's being grown here.

Teppischschuhe! Smooth bottom for the carpet.