Championship claims, painful defeats and other adventures in barefoot tennis

There’s trouble around the corner. I can feel it. 

I’m about to get into another ego-driven predicament leading to embarrassing exhaustion caused by trash-talk-laden challenges.

I am taking up tennis. Again. Let’s state for the record that I am nowhere near as good as I think I am. 

I played a lot of tennis in my younger years. I was even Burke County 4.0 Singles Champion nearly two decades before COVID. Nobody remembers that memorable match because it rained so hard for so many days that my opponent threw in the towel and withdrew. 

Didn’t bother me. Champion is champion. I still brag about it.

The trouble I’m about to revisit is akin to a cockamamie challenge I issued in high school when I played classmate Jimmy Greene for the school championship. 

Jimmy was from the eastern part of the state. Tobacco country. Going into the Championship match he was undefeated. Unlike me.

I was WAYYYY better than Jimmy. I would have been undefeated, too, if I had had the lame draw he enjoyed throughout the season. The day before the match I told Jimmy that not only was I going to eliminate him in straight sets, but, to even things up a bit, I’d play him barefoot.

I didn’t plan to say I’d play barefooted. I don’t even remember thinking about saying that. It was just SAID. 

Jimbo got so wound-up insulted he could hardly talk. “Barefoot?” He said. “You gonna play me BAREFOOT? For the school Champeenship? You and who else? Your sister? I'll beat you AND your sister and I don’t care if you’re barefoot or not, you weirdo.”

“I don’t have a sister, you moron,” I said. 

”Let me just tell you something, AV,” he said. “I ain’t been beat yet and I ain’t gonna be beat tomorrow and I don’t care if you wear Superman shoes. I will remain unbeaten whereas you will AGAIN be beaten.”

A crowd gathered. They were picking sides. It was 50-50 until the barefoot challenge landed, after which my camp vacated.

“Jimmy,” I told him in front of the biased crowd, “I don’t know what they say down on the farms where you’re from, but where I’m from they say you’re all hat and no cattle, by God.”

“You from Texas?” He said, “because where I’m from that’s what they say they say in Texas. You ain’t no more Texan than I am Japanese.”

”Where I’m from, Jimmy-san,” I said, “action talks. And the action I’m gonna be talking is you chasing my shots all afternoon in between your wussy breaks for leg cramps.”

”Put something on it?” he said to the rising cheers. “Huh? Make it interesting? 

“I’ll put something on it,” I said. “In fact I’ll spot you three games a set. You start out Three to Love.”

“Hear that?” he said to the crowd. “Gonna spot ME three games a set.”

”And,” I said, losing my mind entirely, “while playing you barefoot.”

The crowd went wild. “BAREFOOT, BAREFOOT” they chanted. For the rest of the day when I’d see somebody they’d say, “Say, Mr. Barefoot. Seen the weather forecast? HOT! Better get them feeties toughened up.”

The next day was unseasonably hot for May. It felt like August. The concrete tennis courts were frying pans. A crowd gathered around. I was wearing shoes.  “BAREFOOT, BAREFOOT,” the crowd chanted. Off went the shoes. Off went the socks.

He killed me. My feet never bled that much. I limped for weeks.

Jump ahead about 50 years. It’s a local auction fund-raising extravaganza. Adult beverages flowed easily. At least in my hands. Phil, a tennis player from Morganton, was there. 

I spent time talking with Phil about tennis. As the beverages flowed I started thinking that I could take him. So what if he was a full-ride tennis scholarship player at University of Virginia, having delivered to his school the NCAA Division I doubles championship. 

The next morning, 7:00, the phone rang. It was Phil. He wanted to know where I was.

“In bed,” I said.

“I’m waiting,” he said. 

“Waiting where?” I said.

“At the Rec Courts,”  he said. “You said you’d teach me Championship Tennis at 7:00 this morning. I’m here, ace. Where’re you?”

It wasn’t so much that I forgot about that conversation as it was that I didn't remember. I dressed (shoes included) and met Phil.

Minutes into the warm up Phil’s wife and young daughter arrived to watch. Phil said to them: “Who wants to see Mr. VanNoppen run?”

“Me me,” yelled the young daughter.

Phil called me to the net for a quiet talk. “I think some friendly trash talk is fine,” he said. “But you crossed the line when you called me ‘A lily-livered ball boy.’ Let me help you out.”

I could hit it into his doubles alleys. I had unlimited serves and he would only have one. Every game would start 40-Love in my favor. Every set would begin 4-0 in my favor.

“And you can wear your shoes,” he said, leaving me wondering where in the course of the previous evening the shoeless match was revealed? 

Mr. NCAA Champion let every game get to 40-40 before he put it away. He played the corners. He played the lines. He chipped slices in short and arched top-spins to the baseline. His serves went alternatively to my forehand, body, backhand, forehand, body, backhand.

He never broke a sweat. I was depleted. I stopped sweating somewhere along the way, hanging on the net for life. I don’t think he even kept score.

It’s a new day. You’ll see me on the courts. I’ll be the guy out there with bloody feet and collapsed over the net in defeat.