by Andy “Coach” Cotton
To flee the smothering heat of the comedy critic’s luxurious garden retreat in the prestigious “04”
area of town,
aka South Austin, someone suggested we go to the Laff Stop. The critic
promised to pull strings for a “reduced cover charge.” It was, after all, her
“beat.” It was the comedy critic’s omnipresent battery of two aggressive,
young, Jewish attorneys who suggested, after two unfunny hours, we tarry forth
to the Yellow Rose.
Once inside, the duo of heretofore sullen solicitors bounce to life.
Immediately one leaves the table, returning shortly with a pile of 50
one-dollar bills. If the steady stream of handshaking visitors weren’t
evidence enough, the pile of cash suggested the two barristers had been here
before. While our legal protection had momentarily disappeared into dark
corners of the club, resurfacing only briefly to grab another fistful of legal
tender, the comedy critic and I reflected.
Calling on a vast store of dimming pornographic memories, I regale her with
tales of the days when these clubs were not so clean – when small overhead fans
cooled the putrid, rancid air. Frigid clubs (to make nipples more erect,
according to our barristers) with monster air conditioning systems did not
exist. Personally, I prefer sweat, but I digress.
This is really about food which, considering the terrain – healthy, buxom,
naked young lasses everywhere – is quite pathetic. I’m hungry, not for sex but
for food. I demand a menu. The “waitress” considers me with less interest than
a cat has for flying an airplane. I am without doubt their first food ticket of
the day. While our immediate area is engulfed by nubile and acrobatic women
engaged in various forms of lap-dancing, I rant to the uncharacteristically
mute comedy critic and the two attorneys currently being occupied in
gynecological studies how my salad was the best I’d ever tasted. The chicken
sandwich wasn’t bad, either.
I do like watching girls. My mind, however, was on a different kind of girl-
watching. I was pondering the entertaining women’s finals that afternoon at
Wimbledon between Steffi Graff and Arantxa Sanchez Vicario. Women’s tennis is
frequently criticized as boring and lifeless. It’s always male ex-professionals
saying this. As a tennis player myself, I often prefer watching the women
play.
The women’s game is a game I can relate to. If my imagination is running
really amok, I picture myself warming up with Steffi, rallying a little with
Tracy Austin, and trading backhands with Mary Pierce. The women must hit
forehands and backhands to win points – occasionally even a volley. They hit
serves I might return.
The men, on the other hand, play in a place far beyond even my
hyper-imagination. Groundstrokes are hit at a racquet-bending pace. Serves by
the “soft hitters” are, at 109mph, basically invisible. Overheads are never
missed. I rarely hit an overhead in bounds, which is why I, like many of the
women players, let it bounce first. I, of course, still hit it out.
The Graff-Sanchez Vicario match was great theater because they both, even the
great Graff, have to play a form of tennis most of us hackers, in theory
anyway, understand: Serve/return/groundstroke/groundstroke/approach/run back to
return lob, all the while hoping desperately your opponent will miss so you
won’t have to hit another shot. The 11th game of the climactic third set is
already being hyped – justifiability for a change – as one for tennis clinics
of the future. The game itself lasted 20 minutes. It had 13 deuces, six break
points, eight game points. It gave me plenty of time to speculate on why, with
absolutely nothing at stake except the right to graciously say, “Nice game,
Dick” in my own weekly match against my partner of 15 years, I don’t have the
courage to hit out at the damn ball. These woman showed courage to spare.
In an era when tennis is about the only way a superior female athlete can make
a good living as a professional, I’ve yet to hear or read a plausible theory as
to why women’s tennis is so uncompetitive, why its history is dominated by one
or two players at a time. No doubt the impending return of the great Seles is
much needed. This is the very definition of understatement. I don’t look
forward to the media frenzy it will provoke, but if any player can handle this
attention it will be the publicity-ravenous Seles.
The essence of any sport is, naturally, competition. This means the fan
believing the ultimate winner is not preordained; too often not the case in
women’s tennis. Last year’s Wimbledon winner, Conchita Martinez, hobbled this
season by injury, showed flashes of real talent. Sanchez Vicario – who comes
from a family sporting two other professional playing brothers – although not
in the class of Graff, is an entertaining, colorful performer.
Finally, the obscene pile of dollar bills is gone and the economy of my home
town is enriched. The comedy critic’s attorneys return to the table and jolt me
out of my incongruent reverie. The young Darrows ask if I’ve reached such an
advanced age I no longer enjoy watching girls. I do, I quietly explain, I do
enjoy watching the girls. n
E-mail me at coach@auschron.com
This article appears in July 14 • 1995 and July 14 • 1995 (Cover).