Hard core tennis in an orange orchard

I took a road trip to Spring Hill to play some tennis and catch up with my high school tennis coach, Paul Bouchard. He's still playing tennis twice a week at age 73. This is my third year doing this and we've developed some rivals from the host of Florida geezer tennis players who he plays with. We play on a clay court among about 30-40 orange trees that belong to Bob, one of the players pictured below. Bob took this picture in front of one of his prize Valencia orange trees shortly after picking the orange and slicing it into sixths for me to consume. It was a tasty and very fresh dose of orange goodness.

We played three sets on Monday morning, with Paul as my partner. Left to right: Nile, Paul, and Reuben. The morning contest began at 9:30 when the temperature was about 46 degrees and finished near noon at about 62 degrees after 3-6, 3-6, 6-4 sets. There was plenty of wind and a clay surface to master, but it was a lot of fun to be outside smacking forehands.


Today, Paul (left) and I took on the owner of the court, Bob (at right) and his partner, Ken (middle). It was a cooler day, because we started at 8:30 and finished at about 11. 6-3, 7-6, 7-6. There was a pretty stiff cross angle wind of about 15 mph, but we all adjusted pretty well. Lobs were used liberally, because overheads in the wind are pretty iffy. It's a nice place to play, and after a few erratic games, we played some long points and even longer games. When we were done we smoothed the clay, swept the lines and had a couple of oranges. Bob is a very gracious host, as is Paul when I visit here.

It was a good couple of days spent about 50 miles north of Tampa Bay. I am eager to get back to the balmy weather in St Paul, and a chance to play inside where the wind is calm and there is snow, always this time of year, within a few feet of the door.

A couple of extremely nice days in southwest Florida.