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In the early July, 2004, I had a visit to the Hacienda club on a nice cool evening around 5 PM. Lot of activity could be seen on the tennis courts with some children playing, some running around the courts (probably some form of punishment from Shotgun Murugan!) and some simply sitting on the side walls and watching others! In the midst of this maze, I could find Murugan on the directions of a club reception's person. He approached me with a slightly tinted walk with the right shoulder drooping in with the every step.
After preliminary introductions he explained the dress code on the court and the academy rules such as the timings etc. He inquired about my brand new Prince racquet (I purchased it from the Rakhra Agencies, Cambridge Layout for around Rs.3800/-; Rakhra Agencies is in the junction marked as the red circle in the picture) and asked me start playing from the next day morning.
The next day, I reached the courts around 6 AM. Murugan asked me whether I had played tennis before for which I told him I had had played the game in college. He wanted to gauge my movements and techniques and fed some balls over the net from one end of the court. He advised me to change the strokes and suggested taking daily feeds of the balls to improve my movements, technique and stamina. It happened that day that I met Anna Basava aka Basavappa, a senior ball-boy on the courts! :-) He was the initial ball-feeder for me. (More about him in my later posts!)
Later on, with each day, I acquired unique experiences of the game both on and off the court - on, through weekly drills and training; off - by watching the experienced players :-)
Now, I could comfortably play my forehand and drops and slices and still working on improving the backhand. :-)
Watch my next post for the details on the players! :-)
After a break of complete 5 days, I played three doubles games today. Probably, because of the break, my backhand was not working well today and I began to slice the ball over the net. That too clicked sometimes and did not sometimes!
OK. Let me put some information here for those who are interested in playing tennis at Hacienda club.
The tennis courts, part of the club, are maintained and managed well by the trainer Murugan. He has his own academy, TrueBounce Tennis Academy. One needs to pay a certain amount per month to Murugan to play tennis. This amount is not included in the club membership fees (which is Rs. 6735/- for a family membership and Rs. 3800/- for a single membership per year). So, assuming that a single person wants to play tennis, he needs to shell out Rs.3800/- (club membership fees for an year) and around Rs. 1500/- (per month, for using tennis courts, balls and other maintenance). (This may sound a bit heavy, but it is still reasonable if you compare with the other clubs in the town.) Seniors (above 14 years old) need to play in the morning time (6:00 AM to 9:00 AM) and the evening time is allotted to the juniors.
This all also means that you would be a member of TrueBounce Tennis Academy too! Murugan who manages his academy, every year organizes doubles tournaments for seniors and singles tournaments for juniors. (Last year, we lost in the semi-finals in the doubles tournaments! :-))
A picture of the tennis courts here. And, yes they are clay courts! The balls are provided by the trainer and there are ball boys too to help the players.
In the next post, I will put my experiences when I joined the club to play tennis. :-) Watch out!
I have not played Tennis last weekend since I was busy shifting to another house. I miss it :-(
Meanwhile, I managed my time to add a few links to my delicious account. You too can access these wonderful resources on Tennis if you have an account with delicious. (If you don't have one, you can create one; it's free! For the starters, delicious is a social bookmarking site where you can post your bookmarks and share them with others out there in the world wide web! You can access their bookmarks too!)
I had woken up with my favorite news on Federer retaining the Australian Open title beating the crowd-favorite Gonzalez in straight sets. Go Roger, Go!
I have been playing Tennis for more than two years now. My first love with this amazing sport happened in the first year of my Engineering in the late 80s. Guess who was my first teacher? The Big Wall in the Collector's Office of my town! :-)
I now regularly play Tennis at the Bangalore Games and Fitness Institute (earlier called Hacienda Club), Bangalore. (See the bluish area in the map which is the swimming pool and the clay courts beside that!) My blog will record my flirts with Tennis every day! Watch this space. :-)
