Bob Cramer's Blog

Being a “tennis player” has always been part of my identity.  Left-handed and a native New Yorker, there is a little John McEnroe (minus the tantrums) in my game, a craftsman with surgeon-like touch, an artist on a tennis court canvas; stubbornly consistent, creative but lacking big power, my game is ideally suited for a wooden racket era.

I learned tennis under the tutelage of one of the finest men I have ever known, Elwood Cooke.  Elwood lost in the finals of Wimbledon to Bobby Riggs, and for years was one of the top ten players in the world.  He later went on to become a scratch golfer and I bet that if you handed him a ping pong paddle, horseshoe or a baseball bat, he would excel in no time at that too.

Elwood taught me a very conventional continental forehand and for that time an unconventional two-handed backhand, which for years was my signature shot.   Today, it is just the opposite:  I have a one-handed backhand with a mean slice and a forehand that I keep trying to make look more like Nadal’s.

My peak level at tennis occurred when I was about 12, coming off one of the highlights of my career winning the Camp Androscoggin singles championship with a thrilling comeback from down 4-2 (you used to play to 5) in a third and deciding set tie-breaker.  My poor opponent, Tony Meyer, after having lost three match points, burst into tears as his return sailed just wide.  I remember as if it was yesterday seeing the out ball mark on the red clay court and scene that followed.

For someone who didn’t focus primarily on just tennis (I was the George Plimpton of my high school, trying all sports including playing goalie in ice hockey despite not being able to skate, being the barefoot kicker on my varsity football team, a technique that worked well until the weather got cold and the other team tried to step on my foot, and a few other semi-successful adventures including soccer, basketball , baseball and a short lived squash career), I have had some pretty good successes on the court.  They include making the Emory varsity tennis team as a freshman, winning both the Sunningdale (New York) and Druid Hills (Atlanta) country club championships, losing in the finals of the Journalist Tennis tournament at the US Open where Mike Kandel of CNN and I barely fell to defeat at the hands of tennis legend Bud Collins and sports reporter Mike Lupica and of course, losing consistently to Barbara Potter.

OK, let me explain the last piece.  I went to a boarding school in Connecticut where as a 10^th grader, I was the best boy tennis player in the school (that is not saying that much for the tennis quality but bear with me).   However, the daughter of one of the school’s legendary teachers was an incoming 9^th grader.  She also happened to be ranked number two in the country behind Tracy Austin.

One of the nicest and most talented people you could ever meet, Barbara Potter was a tennis powerhouse, with a huge serve, an awesome volley and big time return.  She decided to play one season on the school team, and was way too good for the girls team, so she played on the boys team.

So here was the situation: a freshman girl playing number one on the boys’ team, with me not so conveniently positioned as number two.  We would go play some of these big time prep schools like Choate and Hotchkiss with generally a senior boy in their top position.  This freshman girl would show up, and most of the time, put a serious beating on her opponent, and not just with finesse, but by overpowering them with a serve and volley game not typically found in the Connecticut hills.

As you might expect, my school friends didn’t care about all of this, and I took a lot of ribbing and the like for being second to a girl (of course, none of those “friends” had made a varsity team of any kind and now with years of therapy, I am over it).  Fortunately, Barbara decided after a year of inflicting trauma on the entire New England Boys prep school tennis conference or whatever the heck it was called, she went on to focus on national tournaments.  She did reach the semi-finals of the 1981 U.S. Open and had a long and distinguished professional career.   One year, she even asked me to hit with her as a warm up when she was in New York, an opportunity that I thoroughly enjoyed.

My tennis unlike Barbara’s meteoric career has gone basically nowhere, due to playing golf, other forms of exercise, children, a crazy entrepreneur career and a general lack of ability.  However, I feel a resurgence coming up, with my new semi-western forehand grip creating a lethal weapon that needs to be registered with the state of Georgia, playing the deuce court in doubles so the new lethal forehand is in the middle, making a commitment to jumping rope and overall fitness to wear down the 50-and-over crowd I now encounter and a renewed enjoyment of the competition and camaraderie that tennis provides.

The way things are going I might even breakdown and buy one of the oversized tennis bags serious tennis players lug around.  Add some new designer clothes, a few fresh rackets and a no-fear, take no prisoners attitude, it might be time for the senior tour.  Or I might just take up paddle tennis.