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One Degree of Separation … from Tennis

By Crawford Lindsey

Do you ever wonder what all those people are thinking about as you sit bumper-locked in morning rush hour traffic? Millions of separate consciousnesses all doing the same thing, encased in their metal shells, as if in their own private universes. What are they thinking?

Well, here’s a news flash — a good portion of them are thinking about tennis. How do I know this? Because I’ve read, and been overwhelmed by, the vast quantity of information in this month’s RSI. It would appear that tennis, as a physical, psychological, conceptual, and business entity has tentacles reaching out and grasping every nook and cranny of existence. It has become entwined as one huge neural network tennis brain. We are all ganglions in this huge super-existent tennis super-entity.

Yes, this is cosmic. People are designing, manufacturing, building, negotiating, marketing, advertising, viewing, playing, programming, teaching, administering, thinking, breathing, and living tennis every day in every way. That guy in the car next to you is, on average, only one degree of separation removed from the tennis business. Either he is in it, or his sister, uncle, best friend, or mother-in-law is somehow actively engaged in tennis. It’s the same with the guy honking at you in the rear view mirror, as well as the guy cutting you off. The nose-picker, rear-view makeup artist, head banging rocker, cell phone yakker, and coffee slurping commuter are, were, or will be touched by tennis. Some are tennis junkies already, some obsessed, and some still don’t know that one day soon, uncontrollable urges are going to consume their being.

If we could just get them all to turn the radio dial to a drive-time, 7 am public service announcement: “This is an emergency … please exit your nearest off-ramp to a Tennis Welcome Center.” Suddenly the worldwide tennis brain would gel into a unified tennis thought. The entire neural network would be surging with bioelectrical energy and neuromuscular impulses all combining in a crescendo of cascading activities culminating in a tennis experience, realization, or happening.

Ok, perhaps I’ve been sniffing new tennis ball cans. Actually, reading RSI has the same effect.

See all articles by Crawford Lindsey

About the Author

Crawford Lindsey is editor-in-chief of RSI magazine. He is co-author of The Physics and Technology of Tennis and Technical Tennis

From the March 2004 issue
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