Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Tennis Anyone?
Everyone who knows me knows that I love sports, whether participative or as spectator. Why? Maybe because when you are involved in sports, you don’t do small talk and I hate small talk. Growing up, back in Kampong Puteh, there were lots of sporting activities going on. We used to play football in the garden of the Police Officers Mess (We called it Padang Polis) bordering Che Mud’s lot and a rubber plot. It wasn’t much of a field, couldn’t have been more than 20 metres long and goals were marked by slippers. But we had fun, especially when chased away by the Police Officers waving their pistols at us threateningly.
Ping pong was played on a table whose normal function was for folding and wrapping of completed Batik pieces. The wooden device used for scraping dye onto white cloth in stencil Batik making served as the net. My head was barely above the table when I started playing, I remember.
Badminton was played largely with imaginary nets and lines but ceased to be fun when it got too competitive, as it was impossible to resolve the disputes. Adnan, Che Mud’s son, onced lined up a court using flattened bamboo strips. Actually, there were two cemented badminton courts in our vicinity, one that was known as Padang Che Leh and the other was in the St Martin’s church compound. The former was mostly occupied by the older boys playing takraw while where the latter was concerned, prejudice was a tight fence around it.
Hockey was introduced to us by a bunch of teachers, led by a Mr. Jeremiah, who were renting a house along Jalan Telipot, belonging to one of our friend’s family. The field was former padi land and we had to scoop the ball over the bunds.
The lane running alongside our house was originally surfaced with gravel. It was cemented when I was 10/11 and served as our sprinting track. (We also roller-skated on it with skates Zame brought back from MC [He never told me where/how you got them] one holiday but then that wasn’t sports. The other kids were green with envy).
Then, at 12, began my love-affair with tennis. During one of the school assemblies, the HM, Mr Durbara Singh, father of Kuldip Singh announced that someone in Std 6C, Tea Tong Hooi, who I didn’t even know, had, during the last school holidays, participated in the National Junior Tennis and became runner-up in the U-15 Doubles, partnering Charanjit Singh, Kuldip’s brother. Wow! I had until then, never seen a tennis racket, much less a tennis court! I soon followed a bunch of us who admiringly, persuaded Tong Hooi to demonstrate to us his prowess, not that he needed much persuasion. The courts were at Lian Tong Tennis Club, behind a rubber and rice mill, at Langgar, about a mile from the house. Tong Hooi’s father was the caretaker of the club and he and his brother were ball-boys. After the first visit, a few of us continued to go there regularly, playing with bent rackets discarded by the members or wooden rackets. I was truly inspired by Tong Hooi. He was National U-15 runner-up at 12! (Besides, playing tennis was a much better proposition than sweeping the compound and cleaning the drains around the house on Friday mornings when Tok Ayah was around!) While others dropped out, I persisted. I reckoned that if I was to be better than all the rest, I would be his partner and we will surely be champions at 15.
In Form 1, I got my first racket. It was a white colored Futabaya, sold by the Tennis Master, Cikgu Mahadi, costing RM30, that was supposed to be paid in six installments. Times were bad for Tok Ayah then. Cikgu Mahadi either knew that I couldn’t afford the racket or he was impressed with my talent. He refused to collect from me. I was playing virtually every day, from 3 to 7. The members used the court from 4.30 pm onwards and I continued playing against the wall. That year, I played in my first tournament, a Handicap Tournament, losing to an American Peace Corps volunteer, Tim Gerrodette, in the first round. My handicap was -40 in every game but I lost 6-0. Yet, everyone who saw the match was impressed and I was further encouraged. (It was really sad to hear, only a few years ago, that Tim was killed in a shooting in Thailand in the late 70’s.)
That year too, Mr Durbara brought me along for my first National Junior Championship at RSGC, KL. I cannot remember anything about the tennis, being simply overwhelmed by the experience of going to KL without my family for the first time and by the sheer opulence of RSGC whose management banned us from the restaurant and the pool area where there were bikini clad white women sun-bathing.
Looking back, I can’t believe how crazy I was about the game. I wasn’t just playing, I was eating, sleeping and day-dreaming tennis. I hit countless running backhand passing shots in my head. My coach was mainly the World Tennis magazines borrowed from Mr Durbara. I practiced swinging the racket in front of a mirror at home, imitating various photos of top players then. My service action was modeled after a picture of Arthur Ashe, serving while winning the US Open in 1972, that I found in a copy of Life Magazine. My backhand was modeled after Tom Okker’s who was one of the few who hit topspin on both sides, while my forehand was an imitation of John Newcombe’s. Even without a racket in my hand, I was making imaginary swings constantly.
At 15, in 1971, I fulfilled my original target to win the National U-15 doubles with Tong Hooi. I lost in the semi’s to Samuel Tay in the singles. Samuel lost to Tong Hooi in the finals. However, I beat Tong Hooi to win the Kelantan Junior Championship later that year. But my best tournament that year was the MSSM inter-state Tournament in Perlis. It was an U-20 tournament but I won all my matches. I dare say I played the best tennis of my life then. The national tennis officials must have been watching because late that year, I was shortlisted to tour India with 3 others in December. The trip was aborted because war erupted between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. What a downer! But I did get to Tour Australia the following year.
Going to Malay College in Form 4 was the beginning of the end of my tennis career. I didn’t have good enough players to spar with and I soon got bored playing just tennis, starting to play hockey, rugby, cricket, squash, whatever. My school leaving certificate didn’t have enough space to fill up all my sporting achievements. I did continue to play in various tennis tournaments but I stopped improving. In spite of that I did manage to become National U-18 runner-up in 1973, losing to Kuldip in the final. I upset the top seed, Lee Wai Ching in the semis, 6-3, 6-0. The Malay Mail headlined the story on its back-page, accompanied by a huge photo of me serving, looking like a young Ilie Nastase.
Yup, those were my glory days.
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