Tennis

I come from a modest tennis background consisting of a few freshman year gym classes in which I was at one point asked to sit out a couple of serving practice rounds due to my general lack of racket and ball control... I did not let this dissuade me though from coming here, to this tennis loving county, for the year. 

As luck would have it, Geneva is hosting the Davis Cup qualifier this weekend between the Swiss and Italian National teams. Yesterday was an open practice so I went with my family to watch Federer and Wawrinka train. Even with my limited tennis knowledge, I had heard of Roger Federer. Stan Wawrinka is a recent up and comer who lives in the same area as me so he is a favorite of the family and a lot of Swiss fans I think. 

Stan and Roger being pals on the court (I did not take this photo...)

Roger and Stan after winning gold in Beijing in 2008 (I did not take this photo either)

Yesterday's training was at the PaleoExpo which is a massive event center near the airport in Geneva. The event hall for the tennis matches holds 11,000 and a sizable crowd of around 3,000 came to watch the training according to this tweet from Federer afterwards.

It was extremely impressive watching them play. Even considering my limited abilities on the court, it's easy to recognize how talented they are. When you watch tennis on tv it's hard to tell how fast the ball is really moving but to see the speed in person is incredible. They were only practicing so it was much more laid back than a match but I preferred that. 

Wawrinka (left) serving to Federer (right)

After the two finished their practice, Roger stayed and did some doubles training with a few other members of the Swiss team including Mario Chiudinelli. It was his birthday and the crowd sang to him- in English! (Special shoutout to my mom who shares a birthday with him!!) The whole team did autographs afterwards and hit a few balls into the crowd. Speaking of which, I noticed that while the Swiss fans made a lot of noise (i.e. stomping their feet on the bleachers and clapping) no one was yelling or cheering. I don't know if this is a tennis thing or a Swiss thing... I want to say it's Swiss though. They were very efficient in making enough noise to be heard but not straining their voices or appearing uncontrolled. Very different from the loud cheers and screams at sporting events in the US... I fondly remember losing my voice at many a Creighton basketball game.  

After practice, I went to the main train station in Geneva to buy the Voie 7. It's a pass that let's you ride the train for free from 7pm-5am. So I waited until 7:03 and caught the ~free~ train back to my village. I had a nice walk back to my house and saw these clouds.  (Don't worry, more info and pics to come later about the clouds here.)

As I walked, I debated whether I should give tennis another chance or just leave it to the pros... I'll keep you all posted.