The diary of almost everything

Somewhere between Pilates, strength training, and discovering muscles in my glutes that apparently had been emotionally unavailable for years, I recently realised something strange:
I wanted to play tennis again.
Which honestly feels a little absurd considering the fact that I stopped almost twenty years ago and spent most of that time avoiding tennis courts like they contained unresolved emotional trauma.
To be fair, perhaps they did.

I played tennis from the age of six until I was around nineteen or twenty, which means I basically grew up on gravel courts, cold changing rooms, banana breaks during competitions, and tennis trainers yelling: “Use your feet.” “Bend your knees.” “MOVE.”

Now, the important thing to understand here is that I was an incredibly lazy tennis player, at least physically. If there was any possible way to hit a ball without fully committing to proper footwork, I would absolutely find it.

My trainer spent years trying to convince me that knees are, in fact, supposed to bend during sports, while I personally felt that standing upright and hoping for the best was also a perfectly valid strategy.
And somehow, despite this deeply questionable athletic philosophy, I was actually good.

I had power, decent technique, a surprisingly strong topspin, and enough competitive energy to become emotionally invested in absolutely every game situation imaginable.
I liked winning….. a lot.
Not in a terrifying Serena Williams kind of way, more in a: “I will now passionately debate whether that ball was out by three millimetres” kind of way.

Which was exactly why gravel courts were dangerous for me, because gravel leaves evidence, and evidence leaves less room for highly personal interpretations of reality.
Tennis was also deeply connected to my father.
He played, my sister played and I played.
That was simply the family sport you rolled into automatically.
My father was always the one who took me to training. I still remember sitting on the back of his bike during winter evenings, hiding behind his jacket because it was freezing outside and outdoor tennis in the Netherlands apparently believes children should build character through mild hypothermia.

And I loved competitions.
Not necessarily the tennis itself at first, but the food my mother packed for those long competition days.
Honestly, if you had asked eight-year-old me what my favourite part of tennis was, there is a realistic chance I would have answered: “the sandwiches.”
Which, in hindsight, already explained quite a lot about my personality.

Our tennis club also sold a sandwich I was emotionally attached to for several years. I cannot even remember what was on it exactly, only that I thought about it constantly during matches while my father was focused on tactics and performance and I was mentally preparing for lunch. We just had different priorities.

When I was thirteen, my father died during a tennis match. There had apparently been signs earlier that day that something was wrong, but I was thirteen and children are very good at assuming adults will continue existing forever.
He came home early from work, ate dinner, went to play his match, collapsed on court, and never stood up again. He was fifty-five.
And somehow, after the shock and sadness and surrealness of all of it, life also just continued.
Summer break happened and then September arrived.
And suddenly there I was again, back on the court, trying to act normal because when you are thirteen you do not necessarily want to sit with your emotions. You mostly want life to continue as quickly as possible so nobody asks too many questions.

So I kept playing, and for a while it actually went well.
Until something changed.
Around eighteen or nineteen I slowly developed a kind of sports-related stage fright that made absolutely no logical sense.
The moment the ball came towards me, it felt as if all the strength suddenly disappeared from my arms. I would prepare to hit the ball and suddenly everything felt weak, hesitant, disconnected, as if my body no longer trusted itself to do something it had already done thousands of times before.
The powerful shots disappeared and the spin disappeared.

What remained were nervous little floating balls that barely crossed the net and felt personally humiliating every single time.
And for someone who had always played with confidence and force, that feeling completely got into my head.

I thought it would pass, but it didn’t, and eventually I simply stopped playing altogether and let tennis disappear into another chapter of my life without really talking about it much.

Over the years I occasionally thought about starting again, but never seriously enough to actually do anything with it. I would mention it once in a while, imagine it briefly, and then continue with life exactly as before.

But recently something shifted.
Partly because I genuinely feel stronger physically than I have in years, and partly because Instagram suddenly decided that my algorithm desperately needed tennis content. So now I keep seeing videos of people hitting perfect shots, and every single time I hear that incredibly satisfying sound of the ball hitting the sweet spot of the racket, something inside me immediately goes: oh no.
I want that again!

Not just the sport itself, but the feeling of it.
The rhythm and the focus but also the nostalgia. The strangely satisfying sound of a proper forehand. And perhaps most surprisingly of all: the desire to stop avoiding something just because it once scared me.

So this time, instead of ignoring the feeling, I actually started looking at tennis clubs again. Private lessons only for now, because I absolutely do not need an audience while reconnecting with twenty-year-old sports anxiety.
I also started searching for tennis walls where I can stand there alone hitting balls for an hour like some emotionally determined golden retriever.

And naturally, because apparently this has now become part of my personality, I immediately started looking at tennis outfits again too, since the people reading these stories already know I enjoy fully committing to the aesthetic of a hobby before properly returning to the hobby itself.
To be fair, I do still need a racket and shoes, which are admittedly fairly important details when trying to become a tennis player again.

But for the first time in years, the idea of returning does not feel frightening.
It feels exciting.
And honestly, I think my body still remembers more than I give it credit for.
Somewhere underneath the fear, the weak arms, the terrible footwork and the highly emotional relationship with tennis sandwiches, I think there is still a pretty decent tennis player hiding in there.

And this time, I might finally let her back onto the court. I still cannot promise elegant footwork. But I can promise enthusiasm.
And almost certainly complaints during cardio.

-Sophie Quinn