Tennis Season

Mikki likes tennis a lot. She likes to play and she likes to watch. So she is very busy at this time of year. She is a member of 3 tennis clubs (and on the committee of two of them). Most weeks, she plays several times a week. She also plays for club teams. She hasn't (yet) ended up playing against herself!

It is also tennis season on television. For the last couple of weeks it has been the French Open. Satellite channels and "red button" give Mikki lots of choice. I think she watched Roger Federer's semi-final 3 times over. She was very pleased he won and made lots of knowledgeable comments about his play (well, they sounded knowledgeable to me).

The French Open is played on clay. Mikki doesn't like playing on the clay surface - which is not very popular in England. She thinks it is slow - and you get your clothes dirty! Mikki is amused that when there is a challenge in the big matches on clay, the umpire gets down from his chair and looks at the marks on the court. How does he know which is the right one? She never understood why Disney seemed so proud of how many clay courts they have at Walt Disney World. Do you remember when they used to mention it specially in the monorail commentary?

This week it's grass court season and preparations for Wimbledon. Mikki has tickets and will be going. Of course, we used to live there but my humans don't miss it much. There is only one thing Mikki says she misses. When she is away and people ask her where she normally plays tennis, she can not answer, "Wimbledon".

Well, of course I had to add a picture of my Mikki playing tennis in Florida. Yes, this is one I have played with electronically so it looks like she really can be everyone on the court at once. In fact, she was getting coaching at the time - which is why she wanted some photographs taking to check her action. The people she plays against now know she keeps in form even when she goes away on holiday (vacation).

And talking about holidays, here is the really good news. When not playing tennis - or preparing for the village fete on Saturday - Mikki has booked some flights to Florida. We are all going to be there again in January 2010.