OK, let’s talk about tennis, specifically this “Beth Herr” thing I tried out. I had never heard of her before, so I did a little digging.
First, I typed “Beth Herr tennis” into the search bar, and a bunch of stuff popped up. Turns out, Beth Herr was a pretty big deal in the tennis world back in the 80s and 90s. She was a professional player, won some titles, and even played at Wimbledon.
Since I’m into trying new things, I decided I’d learn some basic tennis moves, kinda inspired by Beth. I grabbed an old racket from the garage – it was dusty, but hey, it still looked like it could hit a ball. Then I headed to the local park where they have those public tennis courts.
I started with some simple serves. I’d always seen people on TV tossing the ball up and whacking it, but let me tell you, it’s way harder than it looks. I spent a good hour just trying to get the ball over the net consistently. It was a wild time and I did look like an idiot, lol.
- Tried to copy some of those fancy backhand shots I saw in old videos of Beth Herr.
- Mostly ended up hitting the ball into the net or way out of bounds. Oops.
- But I did manage to get a few decent rallies going with a stranger.
I also found out some interesting stuff about the word “tennis.” It comes from the French word “tenez,” which means something like “hold!” or “take!” And “racket” comes from the Arabic word “rakhat,” which I guess means the palm of the hand. Pretty cool, right?
By the end of the day, I was exhausted, a little sweaty, but I felt like I had accomplished something. My arms are definitely gonna be sore tomorrow. I am so tired. But, it was a fun little experiment, trying to channel my inner Beth Herr, even if just for a few hours on a Saturday afternoon. I might even try it again sometime, though maybe with a few lessons first. Who knows.
