Doubles' Finals - Feast to the senses!

There are good men, and there are too good men! And,when they meet on court to battle out with four rackets and a shining yellow-felted ball, there will be only one thing common among all of them - goodness! For Heaven's sake, let it be there, coexisting with the kindness of the game! Oh! What a feast was that! When Prem/Praveen (PP) and Nitin/Jeffrey (NJ) met for the first time in the tournament for the Balle de Battle 2007, it SHOULD be a match! And it was!

The power of tennis was manifested in the powerful serves of Prem, good partnering support from Praveen with his slow but deep shots, long rallies from Nitin and fantastic smashes at the net from Jeffrey! The winner was the Game of Tennis! Prem shouted when the match score was evened out 2-6,6-3. And the airs listened to that ruffling the leaves in the distant trees! Finally, the devastating smashes won over the demolishing serves. NJ went away with the crown and ranked with the top honors with the match swaying in their way, 6-2,3-6,6-4.

The awards were presented after the match by Srinivas, Ramesh and Narendran. Emcee Sanjay was at his best compeering the program in his own style. Apart from the second runners-up, first runners-up and winners awards, an award for most promising player was presented to Harveen and two tokens of appreciation were presented to me and Kavitha for helping Murugan organizing the event. I was peeved at receiving this trophy primarily because I did all the help for Murugan just to help and did not expect any thing in return. I really did not expect this trophy or something else. The prime motivation for helping him was to induce an element of professional sense of thinking to the entire process. If it had succeeded then it was the most wonderful award for me!

Lunch was good after a grueling day of hard tennis. (Of course, I did not have any matches for myself, but was feeling double hungry just serving as line umpire in the warm sun! :-)) The beers were thrown and Satish, Gopal, Ben, Hari and Vigyan seemed to enjoy the drinks more than any one else! Gopal was at dancing on the court after his initial taste of beers! I saw Satish feeling shy walking across court; the innocuous smile reminiscent of a mischievous child doing the undoable! :-) With the background of Ilayaraja's classic old hits booming from Murugan's music system, the entire aura seemed to be filled with the incredible tennis machines! The soul of tennis was too conspicuous to be missed out among the many souls that were parched in the warm afternoon! Great was the day. And, great was the feeling. Great was the zest. I left the courts for home with a satisfied sense of doing something and having something that meant so much to me than anything to anyone in this anybody's world of everyone!