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My brother and I, now 76 and 74, competed in tennis for more than 50 years. For a long period at the beginning, I won whenever we played. I wasn’t that good but I played more than he did and I returned every shot that I could reach. Thus, I could usually return the ball more times than he could. Neither of us had a real offensive game in those years, so returning the ball one more time than the opponent was enough to win. My brother was not a good loser and his frustration showed in his self-insulting comments and racket abuse.
But he was determined, in fact, compulsive. He would stop at the public tennis courts on his way home from work and play from six until eight or eight-thirty every day – getting home after his wife had eaten dinner with their two sons. Their marriage bond finally broke under that strain and my brother had to move out and rent his own apartment. However, nothing stopped him from playing tennis every evening.
This amount of practice improved his game, but I was older and had been winning for many years. For whatever reason, I continued to win. There were probably psychological components to my winning, both from being an older brother and from the pressure he put on himself to beat me.
One afternoon we were playing our usual game and I was confident of winning. Then the “turning point” arrived. My brother hit a very short ball that landed a few feet from the net on my side of the court. It was clearly a missed shot and it bounced above the net for an easy put-away. I had many options; a drop shot would have won the point since he was deep in his own court and out of position, or an angled shot to either side which he could never have reached. Perhaps I couldn’t make up my mind, or perhaps I was just sloppy from overconfidence. Whatever the reason, I dumped the easy shot into the net. We looked at each other in surprise, My miss gave him confidence from winning an important point that we both thought he had lost. It is rare that you can identify a single shot in any sports rivalry that turns the tide so completely, but that missed shot at the net was the “turning point” for my brother and me. He went on to win that set and every set we played thereafter for about 20 years.
Perhaps he would have established that record even without my “miss” because his constant practice and natural athletic ability eventually made him a very good tennis player, better than I had ever been at my best. My brother could beat teaching pros at the resorts he frequented for work and vacation. They played for the lesson fees, double or nothing. I could never do that.
Not until Parkinson’s disease robbed him of his balance and grace did the second “turning point” arrive and I drew even with him. But, remembering him at his best is still a precious memory.
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