tenez!

Doubles player Mariusz Frystenberg

I went off Malaysia to catch the semis and finals of the Malaysia Open over the weekend, one of the stops on the ATP world tour. I adore watching tennis (I fare less well playing) and I'm pretty excited to see some of the players I like playing live for the first time.

What was it like? Well I decided Mikhail Youzhny, the eventual champion, looked like a Russian Chris O'Donnell (which is to say, better looking than the real O'Donnell), fell in love with the wonderfully winningly earnest and fighter of a player Andrey Golubev (the finalist), decided I don't like watching doubles, decided I need a new lens for my camera, decided with my friends that we need to start a company selling our trademakr banner slogans, ate far too much, and had an airline cancel a flight on us and leaving us scrambling to find alternatives home. All in all, a fabulous weekend.

A bit of trivia: Played in 11th century France, tennis was then called tenez and played like handball with a rope across a courtyard. Players would shout "tenez!" when they served the ball, which loosely translates to "receive this!" or "take this!"

I personally translate it as "take that!" or "in your face!" and I wished players still yelled this. Much preferable to the screaming in the women's tournaments.