How I Started With Tennis

After quitting swimming, my family went to tennis lessons and played tennis on Curaçao through the years till I moved to The Netherlands. It was fun and on asphalt. Mostly I played tennis on the hotel tennis courts, because they are better than the two other tennis sides I knew on Curaçao. The tennis courts are a bit as the streets on Curaçao, they have to be patched sometimes.

Tennis As A Student

At the end of my time as a vet student I went to the student sports facilities and asked to follow tennis lessons. I stayed following lessons till I finished all my studies. After a while I asked if I could play competition. I knew nothing about competition, besides seeing some people playing after my tennis lessons. I had to become a member of the student tennis club to play competition. The bonus of becoming a member was that they had also internal competitions, which I could participate. I also got my KNLTBnr, and my starting ranking was a 9.

Tennis Competition

I started with competition in an existing team and got the experience I needed. After 2 year I asked some fellow tennis lessons mate if they wanted to play competition too. I played through my student time, and me and my teammates moved together to a ‘real’ tennis club and kept playing competition together for a while. After I moved from Lunetten to Nieuw Engeland in Utrecht I went to a club nearby and started playing Friday night competition with another team.

Tournament

I loved the competition and looked for tournaments in Utrecht. I played some doubles with teammates and a lot of singles. At first, I lost a lot, but after a while I started winning a lot. I even made it to champion in the category ‘dames’ singles 7 twice. When I left to travel the Pacific, I was a 6 in doubles and 7 in singles ranking.

Tennis Traditions

Tennis is called a gentleman sport, which means I am always friendly to my opponents and don’t cheat during the matches:

• During the matches I and my opponent are calling the balls in or out and have to trust each other that this is done fair

• After the match the winner has to buy the drinks and talk a bit before leaving the tennis side or play another match

• Another strange tradition is eating pie. Most of the time it is ‘vlaai’ at 10 or sometimes even 9 in the morning with the competition team and my opponents. 

• During the ‘vlaai’ I have a bit of small talk with the opponents and discuss with teammates who plays which match. This has to be filled in in advance before the first match of the competition that day

• After the matches I eat ‘bitterballen’ and have a drink with my teammates and the opponents.  This socializing moment is a tradition in tennis like the eating of 'vlaai' before the matches start. The team captain of the home team has to fill in all the competition papers. These papers are nowadays sent electronically to KNLTB

• On the KNLTB website I can see my current ranking after it has been updated with the match results.

Beach Tennis

Something that breaks a bit with the traditional tennis is beach tennis. I participated twice in a one-day competition with lots of matches. On sand the ball doesn’t bounce. It is a good practice for my volleys, moving and smashes, because these and serving are the only techniques used in beach tennis.

Watching Tennis

Zoef, zoef, zoef, that is what I remember of watching my first live tennis match at Abnamro tournament. The ball goes faster than on tv or when I play. I liked mostly seeing the big stars train, because sometimes I could train on what I saw and change my technique with help of a trainer, teammate or with 10.000 hours training. Other live matches I visited were De Nederlandse Kampioenschappen Tennis, Rosmalen, and the Grandslams Roland Garros and Melbourne.