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Category: Stew From Brisbane

  • Academic tennis: A Tennis thing meditation.

    As those of you who have read Tennis thing know, I owe my tennis to my brother, MIB. He was the one who told me, before even meeting me in person, “Paulie, you would love tennis.” MIB was right, as he so often is. What I doubt, though, was that MIB would have expected how long I would take my twice-a-week lessons with my coach, Caesar Schwarz. It’s been a bit over two years since I started studying tennis with Caesar. I didn’t start out studying the game, I think it became a study gradually, but it is what tennis remains for me.

    What’s the diff, you might be asking? Think back to playing dodge ball when you were a kid. How long was it between your first hearing of the word dodge and the moment when someone was chucking a ball at your head? Most games are learned as they are played. Many people, most people, likely, learn terms by playing it.

    But, I have not. I have learned to play tennis while studying it. I like to watch tennis played whether I am watching a WTA or ATP pro or a little kid with marvelous footwork.

    And, I love to hit the ball.

    What I have not focused on is competition. This is true partly because at my age I am not especially competitive. I’m not even in a competition with myself, to be honest. I want to play tennis correctly out of a motivation to master something at once new and satisfying. That’s an intoxicating combination. But, the question is does the person on the other side of the net count and is anyone keeping score? When Caesar is the guy, he matters. It’s the precision and intentionality of his play that allows me the physical and mental opportunity to learn. He has raised me since I was a 60+ year old tennis newborn and has been instrumental to everything I’ve learned. If any elements of my game are AOK, it’s because of my coach.

    But, and this is something I mused about in Tennis thing, does one need to play tennis, keep score, enter tournaments, seek the humiliation of their opponents to really play tennis?

    There’s this old broad at Calabasas who seems only to hit with whichever pro is available. I have never seen her playing with anyone other than a coach. There’s no serving and each coach tends to hit the ball directly toward the old broad. But, the old broad bashes the ball back with fierce effort and likes to collect winners. And, this brings me to this quote:

    “Some people, they keep on working with a coach, but the coach is just teeing the ball up for them. That’s no way to learn tennis. This is how you learn the game, right here.”

    The previous quote is from Brisbane Stew. He’s a Qantas pilot I met at Pasadena’s Rose Bowl tennis courts. Unlike me, he has scads of tennis experience and is quite fit for 60. Unfortunately, he just told me the Qantas Brizzy to Los Angeles route is now flown using the Boeing 787. Unless Stew changes aircrafts I won’t be seeing him soon. Bummer. Playing with him was always amusing and educational. Back to his quote. He’s not wrong. Playing with him or MIB is not as easy as playing with Caesar but there’s more to it than that.

    I have mentioned before that an example of Caesar‘s particular genius is the ability to hit shots that are consistently challenging for me, but only rarely beyond my capabilities. The other day, I was watching as he served to an elderly, but very fit student. Caesar had to abbreviate no fewer than three elements of his motion, that I could see, in order to hit a serve that was challenging to his student but not overwhelming. Now, can I imagine that I could get better faster if I consistently played with someone like Stew or MIB? I think the answer is undoubtedly, yes, especially if better is defined by advanced competitive ability. However, there’s a significant caveat. And that caveat involves the questions of form and balance. When the ball is coming too fast or bouncing too high or has been hit too wide or too shallow or too deep the kinds of corrections a beginning player like I have to make must ofetn be done in great haste. Not surprisingly, great haste, seldom results in a shot struck with good form or balance. And, there’s the rub, at least for me.

    It’s a great understatement to say that I’ve enjoyed the meditative aspects of tennis. You see, I am on the eve of cutting back on my lessons with Caesar. This change is driven solely by economics. If a small shitpile of cash were to drop onto my head, I would gladly spend it on more frequent and longer lessons with Caesar, but this does not seem likely.

    Early on, I remember Caesar saying that when he and his younger brother, Darius, were taking tennis lessons as kids their family could only afford one lesson each month. Caesar’s dad was a smart guy because he made sure that his sons actually practiced what they were taught during their lessons. That’s my plan and I will be similarly dedicated even though I will still be having four lessons a month. Still, I’m not going to be happy about it.

    When I go to sleep at night I am thinking about my footwork as I move toward a deep, high-bouncing back hand. I’m not thinking about how I can beat someone or keep them from beating me. It will be interesting to see how things differ and stay the same in 2026. Tt

  • From one-handed to two-handed and probably not back.

    Those of you who’ve read Tennis thing know I started out tennis with a two-handed backhand. My coach Caesar said, “I don’t care what you do after you’ve played for a year but I’d like you to start out hitting your backhand two-handed.”

    I was game but I soon found the two-hander less than pleasant. During my third or fourth lesson I asked if I could try to hit my backhands with one hand. Caesar patiently showed me the basics (he plays a one-hander) and I soon found the whole deal more intuitive and less physically challenging. The one-hander also helped to create a more effective shot. What’s not to like?

    “You hit a natural slice, mate. And, we’re going to build on it. We’ll add the topspin backhand when the time comes.”

    Justine Henin…accept no imitations.

    I was all in and began to informally curate a collection of the best one-handers I could find. My favorites, then and now, belong to Gregor Dimitrov, Stan Wawrinka, Roger Federer and the owner of the one-handed backhand of the gods, Justine Henin. If aesthetics matter, and they always do, there’s no comparison between the one and two-hander. As a wise person on the internet once said, “The two-hander has all the elegance of a monkey wrench.”

    Then, a couple things happened in a relatively close span of time. I managed to hurt my right wrist somehow. This happened about the same time as I began to learn and practice the topspin one-hander and exactly the same time I was hitting against the wall, a lot. The cherry on the sundae was Stew From Brisbane, my sometimes hitting partner whom I know from Brookside in Pasadena.

    To me, Federer’s backhand is second only to Henin’s.

    Stew’s 60, three years younger and leaner than me. He’s played for no less than 50 years and is a very solid player. Stew also likes to hit hard pretty much from the jump, which is not my style. He means no harm and I really like him. But, his shots to my backhand, especially the deep and high balls, ate my fledgling one-hander alive in addition to taxing my already-tender wrist.

    I did a little soul searching while I had a week off from my lessons with Caesar. By the time we were back at it I had decided to make the big switch to the two-hander.

    Before I did I conferred with the MIB himself back in Michigan. “Paulie,” MIB said. “I’ve tried going two-handed at least twice but I always go back.” Various internet gurus cautioned against making the switch especially for players who are older (40+, ha!) and who took up the game later in life.

    One guess who that describes…

    But, I did it anyway and it’s been fairly brutal. For me, the two-hander is an exceptionally difficult shot. Yes, high balls are somewhat easier but in total it’s a far harder shot from a purely physical standpoint. Sometimes, when I’m tired and the ball’s out wide, I will resort to my one-handed slice. Caesar always catches me and says the same thing. “Hitting your slice is Ok but start two-handed and go one-handed as your stroke begins going forward.”

    As if I have time to do all that.

    When my baseball career was on life support I made a last ditch effort to teach myself to hit left-handed. It wasn’t a bad idea. A lefty has a little bit of a head start to first and I thought it made me look like the kind of player who would try anything to be more versatile. It changed the way I saw the ball and I found power where I didn’t from the other side of the plate and lacked power where I had it as a right-handed hitter. It was weird, just like the two-handed backhand.

    Today is the first time I’ve put the sequence of the change and the factors that informed my switch together in my head. Don’t ask me why it’s taken me so long to see the threads. But, now that I have I think I will stick it out with the two-hander for now. I keep hoping for a breakthrough. Maybe next week or next month. Anything is possible.