The passage lasts a few sentences. “This guy walks away with a smile on his face. He’s so happy to be healthy. And he loved every second of that warriors’ battle until 3.30 in the morning. If you don’t like Alcaraz, sorry, but we can’t be friends. Because this guy is the best,” said Rennae Stubbs, a former world number 1 in doubles.
Céline, C30.4 in Walloon Brabant (a club-level ranking), listened to the episode with her folder of statistics open on the table. Two things stayed with her: the time on the clock, and the smile whatever the result.
Half three in the morning, I love it, but technically it’s impossible at our place: the winter dome, we rent it by the hour, and at eleven the manager kills the lights. Court 4 is another story again, with that one strip light you don’t finish a match after ten at night, you guess it. So yes, that battle, I play it. In a different slot. With light.
On the attitude, though, she reckons she’s working on the same intentions. Walking off happy whatever the score is, she says, a pattern she has been applying for years, especially in club league (interclubs, Belgium’s weekend team league) on Sunday mornings at ten.
Walking off court smiling, that one I make. Not every time, but I make it. The difference is that at the clubhouse bar they ask me the score, and you have to answer. He’s got a former world number 1 in doubles explaining on a podcast that it was a warriors’ battle. Same intentions, mind you. Different lighting.
She noted one last thing as she closed her folder: Rennae Stubbs makes her friendship conditional on liking a player. Céline finds the criterion reasonable, and points out that in Sunday doubles you pick a partner on flimsier grounds than that.
It’s true, we checked: We Love Tennis.
