Happy World Tennis Day!

 I love tennis because i love players. Tennis is such an individual game, you are alone in the court and you have to make your move on your own, no one else come to help you. It is not like any other team sports, sometimes you make mistakes like you miss the goal but your team mate could score it. You share the responsiblity of the lose and the joy of the win. Tennis is not like that. You have to do what must be done. When i read the biography of great Andre Agassi, i agreed him a lot about saying that tennis is like boxing.You have to stand in your corner and make your move. Tennis is showing  about your limits: how fast your legs are, how good your shots are, how quick your reactions are, how strong you are in mentally..All of these factors make tennis so exciting for me.

I have been watching tennis over 20 years now. When I was about 13 or 14 yearsold, one Saturday afternoon i watched a great tennis match.The player was fantastic, he impressed me a lot by the way he was making his shots, he was just like born to do it. That day i decided to follow his matches and later i noticed that i became a tennis fan. That player was Pete Sampras. After 20 years later, yesterday when i saw the commercial on tv that he would be in an exhibition match with his great opponent Andre Agassi for World Tennis day, i remembered how i love watching them playing with each other, how exciting their matches were.  I love both of them although they are completely different from each other as a game style and as a personality. Pete Sampras is the king of swing- service and volley game ; on the other hand Agassi preferred to stay behind in the baseline. Agassi is extrovert and not afraid to be criticized as a person while Sampras is shy and showed a great example of a perfect player. I feel so lucky that i could watch them in many many times.

Yesterday was World Tennis day. Exhibition matches were held in Hong Kong, London and New York to promote tennis, take attention to the game and get more younger players and audience all around the world. Agassi- Sampras were not the only ones to attend these promoting activities. Legends Ivan Lendl –i must say that i literally saw him smiling yesterday for the first time!- and Pat Cash had a match in Earls Court in London. Joe McEnroe and his brother played in doubles against Bryan brothers.

In NewYork Madison Square today’s champions Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray had a funny match. Djokovic has a great sense of humor and he knows how to entertain people and Murray could follow him in the funny match which was good. They took selfie photos which was tweeted thousand times! In Hong Kong, Berdcyh and Hewitt had a good match and Li Na played with Sam Stosur. I must say that i love all these activities as a tennis fan. I really like to see players’ personal attitudes. Normally when they are on court they are always so focus on game and serious but with these matches we can see that they become one of us and they like to have a good time too. I like to see them having a good relationship with the opponents, actually they become friends. This makes me feel closer to them. If that kind of feeling passes to any child in an early age it may become a motivation to be a tennis player. As a tennis fan, i am so happy and feel lucky that i could watch many good players and today we have great players like Djokovic, Federer, Murray, Nadal, Serena Williams, Li Na and more...

I am also hoping that in Turkey, sport system can be operationalised and improved for more kids to become a tennis player. Being a sportmen is a great thing no matter what your field is. Happy world tennis day guys!