Shadow tennis

After a nice weekend, most of it spent somewhere near Grand Rapids, I came home for a full week's schedule of tennis. Today there were five mostly retired gents at Marie Park. Five is a hard number to work into a tennis rotation, but we've come to this scheme [why isn't scheme spelled with a "k"?] where the fifth wheel rotates onto the court after every complete game, so that each gent sits out every fifth game. The server is always on the south end of the court so that he doesn't have to look into the sun, and we keep score of the games as though it was north side vs south side. Today the south (always the server) won 11-2. Then Tennis Dennis had to go home and we played a set of men's doubles.   Did I say that it was an absolutely beautiful day?

That's what I'm going to call shadow tennis.

On the way home from my exotic tennis session, I noticed once again that it's political funny season and lawn signs are springing up everywhere. I drove past a sign in Mendota heights that screamed "Jesse!" at passersby. "Who is that?" one wondered. I slowed and saw that it was an old lawn sign for Jesse Ventura and Mae Schunk for Minnesota governor and lieutenant governor from 1998, when Jesse unexpectedly was elected guv of Minnesota. I guess whoever put up the sign is nostalgic for the good old days. I'm sorry that I didn't have my camera ready, but I may go back for photographic backup.

The trees are getting closer to turning bright colors again. This little body of water is somewhere between Nashwauk and Keewatin and some of the surrounding trees are surrendering to their colorful fate.  The equinox has passed and the harvest moon is expected this weekend.

Marie Park courts vs Roland Garros

Across the pond there are a couple of tennis courts. I played two sets of tennis there this afternoon in 80 luxurious degrees. This is Marie Park in Mendota Heights where a lot of my summer tennis ball smacking is done. The courts are well sheltered from the wind and well hidden from casual passersby. The pond shelters a lot of birds. Today they were notably red-wing blackbirds.


The French Open begins May 24, next Sunday, at Roland Garros in Paris. They have a website where one could purchase tickets, usable if one were to spend some time in Paris between May 24 and June 7, when Raphael Nadal takes his trophy home (and his check for about a million dollars.) I was looking at this year's price structure to see what it might cost to actually take in a few matches. Of course, it varies depending on the part of the tourney one wants to see (the finals are the most expensive) and the venue where one sees the match. The main stadium (Phillippe-Chatrier) is the most expensive and Suzanne-Lenglen is next, and it ranges down to the 15-20 outside courts that hold the matches of relative unknowns during the first week. There are differences in the prices within the large stadia, too, depending on how close to the action one wants to be. Lots of differences, but the range of prices for a single day's ticket ranges from the best seats at the finals at P-C at 85 euros (about $115) to matches on the outside courts during the first week at 21 euros (about $28.50). These are tickets for all day, so one would see a lot more tennis the first week, because there are a lot more players still in the draw then. One should probably factor in the price of the airline ticket to France, too, but these are numbers to consider.

A schematic of the center of the tennis world starting Sunday - Roland Garros.