10 Best Walking Tennis Shoes For Men

Best Walking Tennis Shoes For Men in 2023

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Game, Set, Match

The emotions aren't always evident when your tennis coach is also your father. Andi and her dad keep theirs under wraps, but it hasn't hurt her tennis yet. The pain is elsewhere.

Yet, something seemed off. Her athletic stature and dainty gait clashed, fought an improbable skirmish. Were it up to Andi, the reasons for the dissonance would remain elusive. Her coach shared his musings on the matter with anyone who happened to be within earshot...anyone who wasn't on his shit list that is, and that list wasn't exactly short.

Andi approached the baseline for perhaps the millionth time in her young life. She would be 15 in less than a month, but she was playing in her 60th tournament, her fifth national event. "Forty - love," she called to the shell-shocked 17-year old on the other side of the net.

Time slowed, the throbbing in her feet faded from consciousness. She fell into the trance that always enveloped her before she crouched and uncoiled into the blur of power and grace that propelled the fuzzy yellow projectile at her victim across the net.

Bent slightly forward at the waist, Andi bounced the ball...once...twice, rocked back on her heels, and slid smoothly into the deep knee bend that was as natural as breathing. She released the ball into the air, and hurled herself after it, violently swinging the racquet up and forward simultaneously.

The percussive explosion of sound alerted her already vanquished opponent that another missile would soon be screaming in her direction. "Fault" Andi's opponent yelled, though not sure that the ball, which seemed to barely touch ground before thumping into the backdrop, had actually missed the line.

That was the problem with playing Andi. You couldn't see the ball clearly nor call it quickly enough when it landed close to the line. Her opponents weren't used to serves traveling at 120 mph at this level, and most called such balls out, just in case. If Andi questioned the call her opponent would usually reverse it and steel herself for the next assault.

The momentum of launching herself into the serve had carried Andi five feet into the court, and that's where shestood for a long second staring at the spot on the line where she knew the ball had touched. She looked up at her adversary; the faint smile that softly curled her lips belied the steely coldness of her deadeye stare, which she held for an equally long second. Then, she turned and headed back to the baseline. Andi rarely questioned a call. It was as though she understood her opponents' predicament, or perhaps welcomed the opportunity to extend the chase, much like a lioness toying with its prey.

She toed the line again, entered her zone, and launched another ball. This time she twisted her wrist and skimmed the back of the ball to impart the deadly spin of her feared American Twist second serve. Some opponents would rather play an out first serve than try to return Andi's lefty second serve. The second ball sped across the net, though considerably slower and on a higher trajectory than the first. Suddenly, it dived downward, hitting the ground just inside the service line in the corner of the service box, bouncing high and into her opponent.

The girl scrambled to get out of the path of the ball swerving rapidly into her body. She instinctively raised her racquet, partly to defend herself, partly to complete the difficult task of returning from above her head on the backhand side. She barely made contact and sent the ball floating back toward Andi.

Andi had let her momentum carry her forward to a foot behind the service line. She had made the split-step as her opponent had begun to swing, just as she'd been taught to do before she could remember. Now, she moved fluidly toward the weakly fluttering ball, turned her left shoulder to the right and crisply sliced the backhand volley away down the line. Her opponent, still recovering from her attempt to return the ball, merely watched the yellow object that had terrorized her for the previous 45 minutes crash with finality into the backdrop.

"Game, set, match, Ms. Gander" called the chair umpire. Andi waited at net for the ritual handshake. Only recently had she gotten over the strange feeling that usually crept over her at match's end. It was like emerging from a dream, a dream in which she had done something wrong, but felt pride nonetheless.

Andi felt sorry for the girl jogging up to meet her. "Nice match" they mumbled simultaneously, avoiding each other's eyes. Neither meant it, and the little white lie of ritual always made Andi uncomfortable. It hadn't been a nice match. She had dispatched her opponent with ease as she did most opponents. "Oh well," she rationalized, "That's what I'm here for."

She stepped gingerly to her courtside chair. The needles in her toes shifted her focus from match to feet. There was something oddly satisfying about the pain she'd felt over the past few months as her feet grew and her sneaker size didn't. "Size eight was big enough," and always would be if she had her way...no matter how big her feet got.

Andi pulled off her Players and leaned back in the chair. She tried to control her rising anxiety by breathing deeply as she'd read in Tennis Magazine, but she'd not yet mastered the process of preparing for this phase of the game. She wondered what the issue would be this time. With Pierre, there was always something she should have done differently.

Pierre's chiseled and inscrutable features suggested that his game was poker, not tennis. At six feet, four inches tall with two hundred, forty-five well-muscled pounds stretched tightly over that frame, his presence alone made folk uncomfortable. The baritone boom of his voice and evident confidence did nothing to ease the trepidation all but the hardiest felt when approaching Pierre...even his friends.

Pierre turned to the grim-faced little man who had shrunk deeper and deeper into the adjacent chair as the match had progressed. The man's face glowed red; his pores oozed beads of discomfort. "I wonder what his blood pressure is up to now," Pierre smiled inwardly. "Tough match," he boomed in his lilting island accent to the father of the girl that Andi had just humiliated.

The man looked up reluctantly, barely meeting Pierre's eyes. "Not for your girl," he grumbled accusingly. "Ah, she was on her game today," Pierre replied, words more gracious than his mocking smile. Their handshake was no more sincere than Andi's and her opponent's, and the little man could barely tolerate the prison of the giant paw that had swallowed his. "Good luck," he lied as he hurried away.

Pierre's eyes followed the man for a moment. He wondered whether the man was in a hurry to console or berate his daughter. "One never knew which in this game," he thought. He had seen kids hit, yelled at, pulled back onto the court after a three hour match for additional practice as punishment for losing. He was hard on Andi, sure, but definitely not abusive.

He stood courtside as he awaited Andi. He never went onto the court. Other parents came up to congratulate him on her win, their envy and dislike leaking through their mealy-mouthed smiles and good wishes. He smiled his contempt right back, his disdain as evident as their resentment. Not all were like that. With some he shared a mutual respect and liking, but they were few. It took a strong sense of self, an appreciation of strength and confidence, and patience to like Pierre.

"Good Match," Pierre greeted Andi nonchalantly as she came off the court. "Thanks," she mumbled, barely acknowledging him as she moved toward the scorer's table. There would be no hugs and high-fives. It was business as usual; after all, she had only done her job.

Pierre's pride and love were not evident, and Andi's indifference might make an observer wonder about their relationship. The father-daughter bond they shared cowered beneath a thinly veiled hostility so common when coach was also dad. After all this time, Andi wouldn't admit, even to herself, that a congratulatory hug would be inspirational. Pierre wouldn't admit, not even to himself, that his arms ached to encircle Andi in an, "I love you and I'm so proud of you" hug. No, the sting of the needles in Andi's feet was no match for the ache in her heart.