FC LIFE February 2018

Have you ever yearned for those days of playing tennis using a wooden racket and sporting an all white outfit? Well dream no more because each and every year Frenchman’s Creek Tennis has such a match. This year’s event was on Monday, January 29, 2018. Because of previously inclement weather, the Wooden Racket/Vintage Tennis competition was combined with the Frenchman’s Creek Women for Cancer Research Benefiting Scripps Research Institute Tournament. Over twenty players dusted off their wooden rackets and donned their crisp clean white tennis clothing for a morning of spirited competition on the courts. It looked like 1974 all over again: white shirts, white shorts, and white tennis dresses all adorned with wood rackets. The only thing that was missing was the white tennis balls! It’s not so much the attitude of nostalgia that one plays with a wooden racket, but rather a growing conviction of some that tennis is a better sport when played with conventional rackets. Long base-line rallies, carefully planned approach shots, and volleys that need to be crisp and angled to win the point make the game more interesting. But why the throw back to white you ask? Players don’t just wear white because it’s hot outside, that’s for sure. However, white does reflect the entire spectrum of light, which means that white absorbs little heat. It therefore keeps the players cooler than colors. But also around the turn of the 20 th Century competitive tennis called for new outfits. It called for Tennis Whites. Furthermore, since tennis had long been a summer game for the rich, the rich wore white to play tennis. And—since the middle class likes to imitate the rich—as tennis grew over the course of the 20th century, the middle class wore white to play, too. Thus white for tennis became a rule and Wimbledon mandated all-white tennis outfits in 1890. So for the next Wooden Racket/Vintage Tennis event, check your seasonal handbook and pay attention to your email. And when the date is announced, mark your calendar. You will not regret the fun you’ll have playing like Martina Navratilova or Bjorn Borg did in the early 1970s. A BIT OF NOSTALGIA ON THE TENNIS COURTS AT FRENCHMAN’S CREEK By Mark H. Hurd

Back Row; L-R: Mark Jaffe, Lee Storch, Joel Comiteau, Hal Rosenson, Norman Jacobs, Dan Myerson, Tom Aveni, Arnold Kanarack, Richard Florin, and Kevin Kramp Front Row; L-R: Brenda Nocera, Myna Homburger, Elaine Pearlmen, Beth Elgort, Beverly Halpert, Laura Lustig, Connie Forman, Sue Davis, Mickey Berman, and Ginny Rogers