Against the Odds
We haven't played tennis for quite sometime. The month of January started out a bit rough, with the three of us falling ill with flu and cough. So after a much needed rest and recovery, Tian finally got us booked a scheduled in our club. I was still a bit sleepy this morning when Tian woke me up so I could prepare for our 8am schedule. We had decided to take an earlier schedule to avoid the heat which really takes a lot of your energy. Then when we got out of the buiding, we knew that it wasn't going to be a sunny day. Just like the other day, everywhere we looked it was hazy, only today it wasn't fog, it was a sand storm. The only thing that came to our minds was if it would be possible to play under this condition. We were more worried of Xiane getting sick again, so we thought of taking turns in playing. One of us would accompany Xiane in the car while the other plays.
Then we arrived at the tennis courts and met with our playing buddies when we learned that our booking was a hour late than we originally had expected. Tian was so sure that it was 8am and had a theory that someone changed it to accommodate other people. But anyway, we all decided to wait a good hour for our turn to play. Our friends Sandro and Nonoy brought along a new friend who just came here in Doha. After some time of waiting, we realized that it wasn't all sand storm but rather fog with a bit of wind, thus the sand. So instead of sticking to our original plan of taking turns, we decided to play at the same time anyway. As always we played doubles, with Tian and I as a team and Sandro and Nonoy on the other side. At the end of one set we miserably score a single game. Then Sandro thought of changing partners taking me on his side. It was a close and good game between us and Tian and Nonoy. On the contrary, the weather was getting worse and turning into a pretty bad sand storm. Still we went on playing, ending up with these scores,7-2 (tie-breaker) and 6-3. Although we didn't really win, I was happy to have gotten that close. I am happy that I am getting better at playing tennis although I know that there is still room for a lot of improvement.
After playing singles for a few more minutes we decided to call it a day. We had a good laugh at each other especially at Sandro whose hair looked like it had blonde/light brown highlights and whose eyelashes turned white because of the dust. We all had dust on our hair but it seemed like he got them all. It was so conspicuous that we even took photos of him.
Despite the dust we sure had a great time. Consequently, Qatar Total Open, WTA has started on the 26th and definitely has scheduled games today. But with the kind of weather that they would have to endure, I was wondering whether they went on to play. I know that they always had to postpone their games at Wimbledon and The Roland Garros because of the rain, I just don't know if they do the same with sand storm. A sand storm is only indicative of the hot weather that is about to come soon. In any case, I'm sure that, like us, everybody is hoping for a better and clear weather tomorrow and the days to come.
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