Ah, tennis!

I remember watching my first Tennis match with my father.  Boris Becker was the first player I knew and recognized, I thought his name spelt "Baker" and I was both fascinated and repelled by his fair eye-lashes. 

Tennis was really in, while I was growing up.  We named ourselves after tennis players and played badminton.  In high school, we cut pictures of tennis stars out of sports magazines and collected, shared, coveted, safeguarded, begged for, showed-off, and exchanged these pictures.  (And defaced them, when we didn't like them.)  Ah those days, when the greatest problem in my life was that I didn't know how to pronounce "Stich" of Michael Stich!

I remembered all this after Puttachi and I watched the two Wimbledon finals over the weekend.  It was her first time, and she cottoned on to the basics of the game pretty quickly.  When I stepped away from the TV, she gave me running commentary too - "I think Radwanska won this point because Williams' ball hit the net."  "Amma, I think Williams won the next point because I can see her sister clapping."

She watched the whole match with me, without taking her eyes off the screen.  It fascinated me - how a sport could hold her attention for two hours!

She was intrigued that both the losing and winning parties wept - one out of sorrow and the other out of joy.

She was very eager to watch the Federer vs Murray match too, but I had warned her that she wouldn't be able to watch the whole match, since it would go on for long, and that the next day was a school day.  She watched as long as I let her, and when she went to bed, she was very worried about how she would find out who won.

That night, when she woke up for her toilet break,  she wasn't disoriented as she usually is.  She asked me, "Amma, will the match be over now?"
"Yes," I said, but didn't tell her that I had watched it and knew who had won.  I wasn't ready to answer a barrage of questions at 1 in the night!
"Will the winner's photo be in the paper tomorrow?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Amma, don't look at the newspaper until I wake up.  We will see it together and find out who won."

And all these instructions from someone who usually has no idea what is going on when she wakes up at night, and who needs to be helped into the bathroom and lifted onto the toilet seat!

I am waiting for the Olympics to begin.  I'm pretty sure we'll enjoy watching the games together. :)