Every Tennis Drill In New York Sucks

I bought a 5-pack of drills from BumbleBee Tennis and signed up for a session at the Astoria Park courts. As I was walking along wading through litter on Hoyt Avenue beneath RFK bridge I knew I had made a mistake. At the courts, I approached a woman with red acrylic nails and a hopper of balls. Praying the answer was no, I asked if she was running the drill. She snapped her gum and affirmed that she was indeed the instructor. Maybe she would surprise me. Maybe it was presumptuous of me to judge her Keds (replete with…blood stains?), her early 2000s Paris Hilton shield sunglasses, and fake nails. Maybe she would be the Edberg to my Federer, the Socrates to my Plato, the Dr. Dre to my Eminem.

But once she started drop feeding off target, I knew my instincts had been on target. Not twenty minutes into the hour, the instructor blurted an expletive and whined, “Oh man!”. A woman in the drill with whom I had been exchanging ‘is this really happening?’ glances asked if everything was okay. Our intrepid pro had broken a nail. She told us it was hard to ‘feed right’ with the nails and suggested we take some serves. We assented—as we did when she suggested ending the drill early.

I’ll say this: the courts at Astoria Park are well-kept.

[Photo via @ovodovaek]