Tennis is a funny old game: the first time you hit the court, it seems nothing more than a wrestling match between you and the racquet. Play a little more, and you’ll start on a long journey towards the perfect stroke. Hit the perfect stroke regularly, and you’ll begin to realize that tennis really is a mind game that’s impossible to fully master. However good you get, however much practice you put in, there’s always work to be done, frustrations to be overcome and fun to be had.
This site stems from a love of the sport, an interest in the issues surrounding it and a geeky obsession with the gear that goes along with it. I started paying soon after I learned to walk, using a cut down squash racquet, followed by an old warped wooden racquet that had seen one too many rain showers. Like all survivors of the wooden era, I’m constantly amazed by how good modern equipment is, and how so few of us take advantage of its true potential.
Gear reviews are all my personal opinion: I never get paid to review a product. Remember that equipment is a very personal choice – one person’s medicine is another’s poison. To know what stuff to buy, you have to know yourself and your game: a baseline hacker will have completely different needs compared to a practitioner of the art of serve and volley.
The observant among you might have noticed a theme to some of the images on this site…… I have a couple of large fluffy dogs who sit at my feet as I work, constantly distracting me from the process of writing with their pleas for attention, food, walks….and slobber! I decided to make them do a bit of work for once (they’re the laziest supposed working dogs you could imagine). The large one is Bucky, a Bernese Mountain Dog, who at the time of writing is 2.5 years old. The smaller rascal is Oxford, a Newfoundland puppy who’s just under six months and already weighs 80lbs. Their love of the sport is generally limited to chasing tennis balls around the house, although the Bucky does have a soft spot for Federer who hails from near his breed’s ancestral homeland in Switzerland.
One final thought: tennis is a game to be played, not watched. Remember the age-old story of a bunch of people in a pub watching the big game on the TV. The final whistle blows and the crowd erupts in joy, chanting ‘we won, we won’. Then a lone voice from the back of the pub shouts out ‘No……they won, you lot just watched TV’. Enough said.