Throughout my school years, my parents had two obsessions: tennis and me.
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First, tennis. You’re probably wondering why it was so popular with three-quarters of my family. It’s difficult to explain to people who weren’t around in the seventies and eighties and, in particular, in white upper-middle class neighbourhoods. But, back then, tennis was a very big deal. Professional players were like movie stars and rarely did a weekend go by when there wasn’t a tournament on television. Courts were being constructed in every park and schoolyard (you can still see the sarcophaguses all over the city). Clubs like Long Acre were popping up everywhere, similar to the way golf courses are today. And people my parents’ age, bitten by the tennis bug, were infecting their kids, sticking them in te
