Today marks the start of one of my favourite weeks of the year: the Rogers Cup tennis tournament. For the first time, the men’s event (this year in Montreal) and the women’s event (in Toronto) will be played simultaneously.
I am a huge tennis fan (well, a huge sports freak fan in general). My family didn’t get a lot of TV stations when I was younger; we were at the mercy of the reception from the large TV aerial outside my bedroom window. But every summer I could always count on watching Canada’s pre-eminent tennis tournament.
Aleksandra Wozniak, from Blainville, Que., will be playing in Toronto this week. (Image via Wikipedia)
I can’t say for sure if I started playing tennis because I liked watching it, or I started watching tennis because I was playing it. Either way I still have fond memories of hitting the ball against the fence next to the house and against the wall at one of the local public schools while my brother played his weeknight soccer game.
Learning to play against a fence and wall served me well once I started playing tennis competitively in high school. My playing “partners” never missed, which helped turn me into a human backboard of sorts. Being barely five feet tall, I certainly wasn’t going to overpower you, but I would run down and return anything you sent my way!
I have even fonder memories of my dad and I grabbing our racquets, driving to the local community college and playing a set or two a few times a week. We were a little erratic when we first started playing, just as likely to hit the ball over the net as we were to hit it over the fence behind the court. (Being an active baseball player as well, I would give those shots my best home run call.)
Tennis, anyone? (Image via Wikipedia)
As my dad and I spent more time playing together, we not only got better (my dad lobbing the ball over my head as I stood at the net now being intentional, not an oops) but also more competitive (I loved getting him running from side to side, although I’d usually start laughing and end up losing the point).
A lot of our father-daughter bonding moments revolved around sports: playing catch outside the house; Dad coaching my softball team; and him and another dad leading a chant of “We Will Rock You” at one of my volleyball games.
Was there something that always brought you and a parent together? Do you have a favourite summer memory of time spent with your mom or dad, or with your own kids today?
