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I’ve found summer joy in being a terrible tennis player. Join me | Sophie Brickman

I enjoyed tennis more after I let go of my competitiveness and embraced low-stakes fun

I hadn’t touched a tennis racket for nearly 20 years when last month I decided to join an adult clinic at the local courts. I figured that whacking a ball around might help release the tension that has me up in the middle of the night, might wring me out just the way my kids are wrung out at camp, after which they come home and sleep, hard. The tennis players range from college grads to septuagenarians. Some days, 12 people show up, and we play games; others, just two, and we run drills. I used to play as a kid, and was terrible back then – competitive and erratic, a lethal combination that had me cursing a blue streak, throwing my racket with abandon, and clenching my teeth in a vise grip for hours after a lost match. Now, as then, I am terrible. And yet, I’ve found that I am also profoundly happy being terrible.

Whoosh! There goes my backhand, sailing over the fence. Wheehaw! There’s that serve, which might be in, if only my opponent were in the neighboring court. The pros quietly smirk as we lob balls back and forth, like we’re playing on the moon. Some of us are better than others, but we all exist comfortably in the “pretty mediocre” range, and no one cares, least of all me. Compliments whizz about freely, and nice tries are a constant.

Sophie Brickman is a contributor to the New Yorker, the New York Times and other publications, and the author of Baby, Unplugged: One Mother’s Search for Balance, Reason, and Sanity in the Digital Age

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