Two weeks ago, in a kind of dull post-election haze, I hopped a plane to Oahu and posted up at the Four Seasons Ko Olina’s rooftop tennis center. I don’t turn tail and run in the face of every emergency, but after what many would describe as a cataclysm, I was powerless to resist the promise of a lei greeting.
They say the election results are legally binding even in Hawaii, but I can tell you that it all feels just a tiny bit less momentous there, where there’s Spam musubi at the market; guava jelly at breakfast; roosters strutting under banyan trees and gentle waves breaking on ancient lava beds. Sea turtles swim past your leg on their way to the safety of a shallow reef. There’s red mud in your sandals because you ducked the rope in search of good snorkeling. Monk seals lounge in a cove with—at best—a cursory understanding of the electoral college and frankly a woeful lack of contrition for coming between you and the good snorkeling.
For four days, there was sushi and yoga and fluffy robes, bone-warming sunshine and floating meditation—yes, that is a thing and you should do it—but the part that made me feel like life will go on was playing on that rooftop, where the trade winds buffet your ball and you dance around a fuzzed-up Pro Penn 2, which still bounces pretty well because it’s spent its whole sainted life at the Four Seasons.
I returned to a cold, wet Seattle, beset by bomb cyclones and outrageous political appointments and the endless hand-wringing of pundits who were supposed to know better. But four times a week, I stick my head in the sand for 75 minutes of tennis, and I recommend you do the same.
The best part about having A Sport is that—when that sport is tennis, anyway—it can be pastime and workout and outlet. A reason to travel and a welcome distraction at home. And when we need it to, it can also be a through-line that extends far behind us and forges on ahead into the fog of time. Through-lines are a source of comfort for those of us who think the world is about to go to hell in a handbasket, and, I suppose, for those who think hell and the handbasket were just narrowly avoided; they remind us that things will continue, when we’re wondering how they possibly can.
If history is any guide, we will have the through-line of tennis for a very long time. Since its humble beginnings in the medieval streets of Paris, tennis has survived at least two plagues, weathered countless pandemics, and outlived empires. It’s not exactly a standard-bearer for human rights—our sport has thrived under questionable regimes; Mussolini built the Foro Italico just for tennis—but it is a survivor.
It may be helpful to recall that four years ago, we were playing in empty stadiums (see: my article in which I find a silver lining during the pandemic). Marking our tennis balls with Sharpie so we wouldn’t have to touch those of an opponent. Playing outdoors in masks. Yet still we saw tennis as our sanctuary; a way to socialize and exercise and think.
Golfers might argue that all of this is true of golf, too, but they’re wrong, and anyway golf courses are always the first to go in a pinch. During the pandemic, people weren’t golfing from rooftop to rooftop; they were hitting tennis balls. This is just to say that our sport has a lot going for it in extreme circumstances. We should bear that in mind for the foreseeable future.
In fact, tennis is the perfect sport in times of upheaval. You can do it in almost any foreign country, including—nay, especially—the liberal democracies. The confines of a court are womblike; encased in ivy or stone if you’re lucky, or at the very least cyclone fencing, with hot-lava boundary lines. When it’s indoors, there’s an added layer of weighted-blanket security. It’s a beautiful game: pure combat, controlled aggression, grace and power and truth and trust. Tennis embodies almost everything good about sport, with almost none of the bad.
Just remember: there’s been tennis since people thought the world was flat and the earth was the center of the universe. And yes, lately it’s looked like we’re headed back in that direction. The good news is that tennis will be there to catch the handbasket when we land in hell. The bad news is that pickleball will definitely be there, too.
Wendy Laird is the Features Editor of Racquet. She is still peeved at the Hawaiian monk seals for blocking the entrance to the cove with the good snorkeling.
