LitWit Challenge 3.5: Game, set, match
This week’s prize: Open by Andre Agassi.
As long as we’re glued to the US Open tell me a story, real or fictional, that involves tennis in some way. Tennis as metaphor, tennis love stories, tennis fan fiction, fire away. Maximum 1,000 words, deadline at 11.59 pm on Saturday, 11 September 2010.
Time. The Weekly LitWit Challenge is brought to you by our friends at National Bookstore.
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Last week I caught three more movies for our Tennis At The Movies list.
22. My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend by Eric Rohmer. Blanche is befriended by Lea, who encourages her to meet guys. Knowing that Blanche has a crush on the resident hunk Alexandre, Lea gives her a ticket to the French Open at Roland Garros. Blanche finds herself sitting with Alexandre; unfortunately she freezes up in the presence of guys she likes. She can only be comfortable with guys she’s not attracted to. Like Fabien, her girlfriend’s boyfriend.
23. Full Moon in Paris by Eric Rohmer. Louise lives in the suburbs with her boyfriend Remi, who plays tennis every Saturday morning. She’s afraid to lose her independence, so she starts staying over at her apartment in Paris on Friday nights. But living in two places at once is complicated: when she’s in Remi’s house she wants to be in her flat in Paris; when she’s in Paris she wants to be at Remi’s. So she arrives at Remi’s very early Saturday morning, and he’s not playing tennis.
24. The Woman Next Door by Francois Truffaut. Madame Jouve, manager of the tennis club in Grenoble, recounts the tale of two members: Bernard, who is happily married to Arlette, and Mathilde, who moves into the house next door with her husband Philippe. Eight years earlier Bernard and Mathilde had a stormy relationship which reduced them both into nervous wrecks. Could they avoid resuming the madness? Madame Jouve herself is the victim of a mad passion: 20 years ago, upon hearing that her former lover was getting married, she hurled herself out of an 8th floor window. . .
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
September 5th, 2010 at 02:46
I thought you might like this http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703946504575469961990822120.html :)
September 6th, 2010 at 01:08
I really wouldn’t know what to write. Tennis isn’t just not my cup of vendo-coffee. Cheers to all the participants, though, and have a great… Monday. Ahahaha, lavet!
September 7th, 2010 at 10:54
As soon as he enters the room I start yelling.
“Why’d you tell them you got the cocaine from kissing a girl? Is it true? Who’s the girl?”
He puts down the grocery bags and calmly says, “I needed a good alibi. I couldn’t just tell them-”
“Is it Tatiana Golovin?”
“-I needed the time off so we could watch movies together. What do you mean Tatiana Golovin?”
“Nothing, I just- You know, it would be better if you spoke to me in French, Richard Gasquet,” I tell him, still angry about the reports.
“But you don’t speak French,” he says. “And I’d like it if you stopped calling me that.”
“But I like your name. What do you want me to call you anyway?”
“How about, hmm, Cvalda?”
“What do you mean Cvalda? Stop watching it! They were just friends.”
“But they were really close.”
“I think it means close friend.”
“You don’t remember, do you? She explains-”
“Please Richard Gasquet, English is not your first language. Don’t tell me what the movie was about.” I sit on the couch and he sits beside me. I turn on the tv. There are no tennis matches on.
“I miss watching you play tennis. I miss seeing you win,” I tell him.
He takes the remote, and with his free hand holds my left hand. He flips channels and stops at Cinema 1.
“I think I’d win more matches if I had a double-handed backhand,” he says, almost whispering.
“We’ve already gone through this Richard Gasquet. Remember what John McEnroe said about your backhand? It’s the best stroke on the planet.”
“You really think so?”
“I wouldn’t convince you to use a single-handed backhand in the first place if I thought it-”
“When I get back on tour I promise I’d win more matches,” he interrupts me.
“But remember our deal, eh. When it’s Roger Federer-”
“What is this- Roger Federer again?”
“Why are you yelling at me?”
“Do you still like him? He picked tennis over you, remember that?”
“This is not about me. Stop shouting Richard Gasquet. I just want you to-”
“You’re shouting too!”
“-win more matches, maybe a Grand Slam.”
“But I already have one.”
“Yeah but with Tatiana Golovin. I hate her.”
“Let’s stop fighting ok. What are we watching tonight?”
I don’t speak for a while. I hate it when he does this. He lowers the tv volume.
“Let’s watch The Earrings of Madame de… again,” he says. “Without subtitles this time. I’ll translate.”
I do not speak for a while. Then I say, “you’d do that?”
“Sure.”
“Maybe when we watch The Horse Thief again, I could do translate it for you.”
“But you don’t speak Chinese. And the movie has like maybe fifteen lines-”
“It’s called Mandarin you know. How’d you feel if I called your language European?”
“I was just teasing. We ok now?”
“Yeah.”
“Nope, you’re still not ok. I will watch one of those Robert Altman movies with you, if that would make you happy. Even if I don’t get them.”
“Really you’d do that? But why don’t you like Altman, Richard Gasquet?”
“I’d pretend I like them ok? What are we watching?”
I squeeze his hand, a little too hard. “McCabe and Mrs Miller.”
He smiles. I hate it when he smiles. I like him serious.
“I love my backhand,” he says.
September 7th, 2010 at 11:29
So. Reeshard Gaskeh.
September 9th, 2010 at 17:49
He said that it was because he was afflicted with thalassemia minor, a genetic trait that he says causes mild anemia, that he couldn’t get enough of, well, sex. He said he needed it to keep his blood flowing. Before we got married, and of course after, it consumed our lives, when he wasn’t training or competing.
We probably went through five rounds or so the night before he lost to that Swiss guy, thus ending his 31-match winning streak. He was really pissed about it. And yes, you guessed it; it was angry sex afterwards.
The next year, we were going five rounds a day going into one of his big matches, and he lost in the second round to the guy who was ranked 145th. The biggest name in all of tennis losing to the guy ranked 145th! It wasn’t even funny.
After the sixth round that night, I told him I had a new toy I wanted to try out.
“But you have to be in a blindfold,” I said.
Sweat was dripping from his body. I didn’t know how he could manage it after going five hours in a match of shredding his legs. And he looked like he could go on the whole night.
“Okay.”
I put him on a blindfold then quickly put on the chastity device around him.
“WTF?!”
“And that’s the last you’ll be getting until you win something big.”
You know how on TV, you see the guys really pumped up after winning? That seemingly primal cry to what is unmistakably sexual? You just know they’re going to get some that night. I was going to make sure that he wouldn’t get any until he deserved it.
It didn’t start out as well as I thought it would. He was really frustrated the whole summer going into the US Open that year. He said that it was the only thing that kept him sane. He said it was his only way to release his stress, that not doing it would cause “it” to atrophy, that it was my legal obligation as his wife, that he needed it for his anemia, and a million other things. He would pleasure me every night, working as hard as he did in court. But I resisted all temptations.
Living under this frustration, his performance started out poorly. I started having doubts. Some loser that he had previously beaten said that my husband was “a step and a half slower” and predicted that he would lose his next match in the US Open. They did not know of my own efforts though. He worked himself harder than he ever had in his life, under the frustration, to sublimate his frustrations with me at night.
In the tournament, he was facing two young up and comers, both of them with less pounding on their legs, less pressure of facing up to a career and a tradition, both of them quicker, faster, leaner.
But he was not going to get anything until he won something, I told him. He said he didn’t even feel like a man anymore, that I had castrated him. I said that I just wanted him to be the man that I knew he was.
He cut down the German/American (who was ranked 3rd no less) in the fourth round with frightening ease, and then another American in the quarterfinals. After he defeated the Dutch challenger, he had reached his third straight US Open final, and eighth US Open final overall. I was so happy and I was so ready to give in. It was better than anything he had ever achieved.
But the last match would be against his perennial rival, another one trying to make one last hurrah, fighting against time, having defeated several up-and-comers himself. A win here, against his biggest rival, would cement his legacy.
He went to bed unsatisfied that night.
The next day, it was 6 – 3, 6 – 4, 5 – 7, 6 – 4.
He said he would add up all those numbers and that would not stop until he reached that sum.
“Go for it Pete.”
September 9th, 2010 at 20:54
Pag namatay ako isa sa aking maraming depinisyon nang langit ay ang bumalik si Martina Hingis sa aktibong paglalaro. Si Martina na maski mala-airport sa lapad ang noo at pagkalaki nang mga binti, ay tunay namang marikit. May anggulo syang mukhang mabagsik at masungit, pero pag inalagaan naman siguro at pinagluto nang masarap na tinola at iba pang masasarap na pangkaing Filipino, at mamahalin nang Filipino, ay titino na rin sya, gaganda na muli at magkakaroon nang masinag na mukha. Di na rin sya magcococaine. Chocnut na lang siguro ang babanatan nya.
Pero bakit nga ba sa lahat nang larangan ng sports e sa Tennis dinudumog nang pagkagagandang mga dalaga at dalaginding? (Talagang outlier lang ang magkapatid na mukhang tsonggong Williams). Pano ba nagkaganito? Hindi ka ba papagenrollin sa akademyang pang-tennis pag tagilid ang karakas mo? Naghahanap ako nang artikulo sa internet tungkol dito pero wala pa akong makita.
Ang nakita ko lang ay picture na naglaro pala nang doubles kamakailan si Martina at Anna Kournikova nang doubles. Wow!
Martina, bumalik ka na sa kumpetisyon. Kaya mo yan. Magtino ka lang at manumbalik sa tamang landas, wag magdroga, wag magsasasama sa masamang barkada… maghanap ka na lang nang pinoy na magmamahal sayo. Makikita mo, babalik ang iyong matitinding drop shots, At ang kakaibang kanditirit kapag nakakatama nang winner. Winner! Hindi katulad nila Sharapova na masyadong nakakaeskandalo sa pagbirit, hiyaw, at halinghing sa bawat palo. Di namin kailangan ang mha hhhiiiiiyaaaauungg na yun, Ang kailangan naming ay ang dating mahinahon at masayahin na Martina Hingis.
September 9th, 2010 at 23:41
It was a amour de rencontre. A one-night stand. Or it should’ve been. It was a heated match and afterwards, I gave in to him in the showers where I did not give in during the match. It was literally a French Open.
I don’t know what I was. I *was * paid an obscenely huge amount of money by a businessman so I could fulfill his fantaisies, but I thought that was it, just a way to earn money. It wasn’t like I was doing badly, but I kill myself on the court and during training and then pray for endorsements and tournament wins. But here he was, asking for nothing more than what I do with my petite amie, and I would be paid handsomely.
Turns out the conasse was filming our encounters and when I said I wanted it to end, he somehow leaked it to the media. My coach had nearly killed me when French media erupted with news about that. I gave that interview in Le Point. Thankfully, the businessman denied it too, and did not reveal anything else. That seemed to clear things up. I thought I was over with that part of my life.
But then here he was, nothing at all like the businessman. He was just like me – French, handsome, a tennis player, legs that went on forever. He did it to me like it was nobody’s business. Me beating him in court certainly made him furieux, more intense than the businessman ever was. Like how real men would do it. And I thought that this was all right, because we were doing it like real men would do it. Hard, brutalement, not at all like how I would do it with my girlfriend. Nothing soft. It was wild and animal-like. Taking out what we had in ourselves on each other. Well, mostly him on me.
Then he started wanting it all the time. He started doing it before my matches. Once I refused. Then he took out a knife, held it against my neck so roughly that it cut me and he did it anyway. If this wasn’t rape, I don’t know what is.
It crushed me to find out that he would take out bets against me during my matches. He did it exactly when he had his way with me.
I said I would report the whole thing to the media.
He laughed. He knew I could not be serious.
He was right. The last male tennis player who was openly homosexuel was in the 1920s – Bill Tilden. He was arrested for sodomy and died penniless. Well, here’s Renee Stubbs too, and Conchita Martinez. Amelie Mauresmo did not lose any endorsements when she came out. But Martina Navratilova and Billie Jean King did. They were forced out of the closet when they were outed. They lost their endorsements. But reporting that someone was forcing sex on me when I did not want it didn’t make me gay right? It just says that I am a rape victim. And that’s right, the public would make that distinction and journalists will not speculate endlessly about my sexualité after that whole incident with that businessman.
I thought of everything. I tried paying him off, but he kept wanting more and more money that he sucked me nearly dry. I thought of blackmail or hiring some goons to threaten him, but I’d be like that Nancy Kerrigan girl if I were found out. There was nothing else I could do but – assassinez.
He was suspended by the fédération française de tennis for the betting; eight weeks. He appealed to the fédération saying that the penalty was too harsh. He said he never bet more than $3 at a time. The penalty was reduced. Five weeks. It was a lie. He never bet more than $3000, after having thrashed me before my matches. He would pay. I would make sure.
I had to give in to him again. It was perfect. He was drunk. He was violent. Careless. I was bruised so roughly. But he was careless. He passed out afterwards. The pharmacien said the poison would not be detected, and was efficace. But in the end I could not do it.
In the end, he was found dead in the stairwell of his Paris apartment. The reports said that his girlfriend was with a friend in his apartment. They came out after a while, having left him messages, and noticed that he was lying on the floor next to his bike. They called the ambulance, but that unfortunately, he was already dead. Contrevérités. The police found his bank accounts emptied out a few days before his death, and a sudden increase in his girlfriend’s own accounts. Further investigation showed that the girlfriend was being abused and that she had planned to kill him. They did not discover the poison, but there was enough circumstantial evidence to convict her.
I went to return the poison and the pharmacien told me the same poison to his girlfriend (who was then known all throughout France, from the investigation). It turns out that I wasn’t the only one being abused. But I was one who was too afraid to stop it.
In the end, what does that make me? Homosexuel? Diabolique? I can only hope I make things right from here on.
September 9th, 2010 at 23:58
BOT : can you tell me something interesting?
ME : yep, i had bad tennis practice today. im thinking of quitting tennis altogether.
BOT : buzz off
ME : what?! why do you talk to me like that?
BOT : i like balls, if that’s what your getting at
ME : you’re not being a good chatbot at all.
BOT : you neither
ME : im not a bot. im a human being who didn’t enjoy tennis practice today.
BOT : nope i aint
ME : So you better come up with something interesting, because I’m going to enter the transcript of our conversation in JZ’s contest for the autobiography of Agassi
BOT : (freezes)
ME : damn
September 10th, 2010 at 02:16
jessica, how come jake gets a comment on his entry but not my entry does not?! hahahahahahaha
September 11th, 2010 at 09:30
@Macbookpro: Knowing what I know about Bridgette Wilson and her film roles (pre- and post-Mrs. Sampras), I could *totally* see her doing that to Pete. ;)
Topic: I have nothing to meet this deadline. Well, except for the tennis scene in Salawahan. And Julian Sands (aka the walking definition of sex on a stick) in tennis whites.
September 11th, 2010 at 14:43
Calatrava, 1965
Simon was a spry sixty when he decided to heed his friends’ needling and travel to Spain to look for a wife. Three days before his scheduled trip, while waiting for his truck carrying copra to San Carlos city to trade, and where he was to play his weekly game of tennis, he saw a vision in pink meandering down the road. It was the neighborhood manicurista’s daughter Caroling, now a manicurista herself—she was all of sixteen.
There was no tennis for the smitten Simon that day, who married Caroling barely two weeks after. There was to be no Spain in his lifetime, either. Barely a month after the wedding, Simon succumbed to a massive heart attack on the court, this after serving three straight aces, his best performance by far. Caroling had Gemma exactly eight months after his death.
Cebu, 1985
Arthur’s father Jay was the center of his universe, to Arthur he could do no wrong. He decided early on he wanted to be just like his dad when he grew up: handsome, athletic oozing with charisma. If not, his fallback of choice was the priesthood, but only of the Jesuit order, as the others were up to no good really, his mother kept telling him.
Arthur was ten when he woke up early, breakfasted and dressed that Saturday morning for their weekly father and son tennis game at the club, only to be delicately rebuffed by Jay, who claimed a weekend business conference at a neighboring island resort, albeit over some games of tennis, when Arthur pointed out Jay’s packed tennis gear.
Bereft of a father figure, the comely and inherently sweet Gemma had easily fallen for Jay’s easygoing charm and confidence the instant they met at a Rotary Club meeting, six months earlier. A student of Cebu’s premier Catholic school for girls, she had tagged along with a classmate whose parents were keen on the Rotary Exchange Student program, and Jay was the incoming president.
Cebu was then slowly developing into the metropolis it has become today, and their May-December romance bloomed against a backdrop of chic, urban boutique hotels, exclusive beach resorts and mountaintop B & Bs.
Jay’s feelings swiftly escalated from flattered to besotted, and he took pains at their being discreet. Gemma herself had her scruples, and though totally transparent in her affections for him, she asked Jay to refrain from giving her expensive gifts, thinking this would trivialize and cheapen their relationship.
She was however, eager to match, if not surpass Jay’s pursuit of things he was most passionate about. And next to her, Jay was crazy about tennis, a game he had been ardently coaching Gemma.
They had both looked forward to this weekend in Mactan, and Jay had chosen a resort known for their clientele of mostly European tourists, according the couple a modicum of anonymity.
Saturday morning was spent working on Gemma’s backhand, with Jay encouraging her to go for the two-handed backhand whenever possible. Hey, giving in to your strengths doesn’t make you any less of a player.
Later that afternoon they doubled with the resort’s other guests, a couple from Wales. It was a well-matched game with Robert, like Jay, in his late forties and his fiancée Nikki in her young twenties. But thanks to the offensive efforts of Gemma and the serves aimed mostly at her Welsh counterpart, the game easily ended in Jay and Gemma’s favor.
Dinner was a giddy affair, spent gleefully discussing their win over cold Japanese beer and sushi. After a nightcap of warm cognac, both agreed to sleep in late the next day, and eventually dozed off sometime after midnight with their TV still tuned to some late-night show, a quirk of Jay’s, who was lulled by the white noise.
It was about seven that Sunday morning when they got the call from Robert, inviting Jay to a rematch—just three sets, you and me old chap. Though apologetic about calling so early, he was clearly upset with Saturday’s loss, and was out to redeem himself. And where brandished egos were concerned, Jay understood and agreed to meet Robert at the courts by eight o’clock.
They played with the solemnity accorded a joust. Jay, so blissfully exhausted by his love of tennis and life, was quite impatient to get back to his love and rained volleys and aces on Robert, easily winning the first set. He wavered by the second set, but as Robert gained some ground, Jay rallied with every deuce and won the match.
It is noon when Gemma discovers she cannot rouse Jay from his deep sleep. She lunges for his heart, it no longer beats. Tears of muted grief, and it can only be grief, dull her vision. In the heightened silence that envelops the room, snippets of the Sunday movie special are the only audible sounds. ‘Twas beauty killed the beast, concludes Carl Denham with a drawl. And just like that, Gemma felt tawdry and cheap.
September 11th, 2010 at 23:22
The sun was glaring and it’s making Tom’s headache ten times worse. He was heading back home from his girlfriend’s house when he bumped into a girl. She looked like she was headed to the gym, but she had a tennis racket case. She smiled at her on her way out of the elevator and Tom thought he might have a nice day. But things turned for the worse when he saw his apartment door opened. He went inside and saw his roommate tied up and beaten to death.
Tom was later informed that his roommate was killed with a tennis racket. Tom then recalls the woman he saw at the elevator that day and told the police what he could remember from the woman’s face. The racket was found at the lost and found corner of their building. The police told him that the girl who recently transferred to the unit three doors away from theirs found the racket in front of her unit when she was about to go to the gym.
Months have passed and no one had been caught for the murder of his roommate. He had been staying at his girlfriends place now for several weeks, but she was almost always out of the country. One night he was having dinner at a food joint; a man approached him and said he was an old classmate from elementary. Tom apologized for he could not remember him. In fact realizes he could not remember anything from his childhood. Confused, he went back to his girlfriend’s place and he saw his girlfriend unpacking her clothes. She consoled him and told him his parents have died when he was fourteen from an accident. She said his parents were big fans of Pete Sampras and on their way home from watching the US Open 1995, his parents were robbed and killed just a few meters away from their house. She said that erasing his memories of his parents was his way of coping with the situation. She told him that every now and then he would remember things from his childhood and would suddenly turn violent. She told him that that the medications he had been taking for migraine was actually meds for his mental condition. She said he would suffer from painful headaches when his memories would come back. Tom could not believe what he was hearing. He rushed out of the door and headed to the park. Suddenly, he remembered everything. He remembered sneaking out of the house to meet a friend when he saw his parents mugged and shot at the head. He then remembered that he was at his old apartment when the day his roommate was killed. He was sitting at the couch when his roommate came home from playing tennis. His roommate said one of his clients invited him to a tennis club for a meeting. He then remembered having one of those painful headaches and the next thing he knew he was smashing his roommates face with the handle of a tennis racket. He then heard his girlfriend’s voice calling his name. She saw him at a bench sobbing. She hugged him and she said everything will be ok. He then remembered going to his girlfriend’s place with a bag of bloody clothes. He then saw himself with her girlfriend burning the contents of his bag.