Inter family tennis match

August 28, 2005 turned out to be a great day for the Sabri, Mahatun and the Farid's families. We had a tennis match against the Ghazi's families, upon Datuk Ghazi's invitation at his residence at Country Heights, Kajang. It all started as a joke a few weeks earlier, when Farabi, Mahatun's son who got married to Fiza, Datuk Ghazi's daughter, suggested a game of tennis at his father-in-law's place. We took it to mean just the usual tennis game at leisure, just as we would play at any club house. Contrary to our expectation, Datuk Ghazi threw a challenge to us for a inter family match instead ! We accepted unconditionally and the date was fixed, which turned out to be a month's later. They came back with the number of matches which include a veteran doubles match. Panic strike us at first simply because 70% of our selected team members had not played the game for months or even years and it was especially true to Sabri and I. The last time I played tennis if at all was after Farah's wedding in 1998 at her apartment with John Jennrich, Farah and Fairuz and even then it was only a two set game. I had abandoned tennis since 1994 due to my knees problem. As for Sabri, it was since 1994 too when we last played together at the Lake Club.

Thanks to Farah, we went over to her apartment's tennis court to begin our tennis practice and what a practice it turned out to be ! The balls flew everywhere ! We had so much funs teasing each other's awkward movements and strokes, if we could call them such !

Neal, Azlan, Farah and of course our best lady player Syaz got down to practice with us, and after three Sundays practices, we were "ready" for the match at Datuk Ghazi's place. As supporters we had almost everyone of our family members joining us. Of course everyone was looking forward to the expected food galore that we reckoned Datuk Ghazi and Datin Syarizan would give us. It was not a disappointing one anyway. We all ate to our hearts content and as for the game, we did very well at first, when we led 3 / 2 . Neal lost his single and so were the double pair of Fairuz and Syaz, but the lost was compensated by the winnings of Azlan's and Syaz's singles and the double pair of Azlan/Farah.Then came the final showdown of the veteran everyone was looking forward to. Datuk Ghazi 55 years old partnered his 30 year old son, whilst Sabri and I both aged 67, became our veteran pair.

It was a hilarious match as far as we were concerned. Whilst under normal circumstances, had we two had more time, meaning more weeks to practice, we would have given them 'hell' before they would win. The match, as it turned out, was altogether a one sided affair. We tried our best not to get a duck score but ended as such despite the shouts of encouragement by our family supporters with Ainul constantly shouting to us , "ou, pecahkan telor tu ! Score one at least ! " There was Sabri trying to make a good return from Ghazi's service, we exclude of course the son's service here, and running to recover a deep lob at the base line from him, but all to no avail, and with me equally unsuccessful too ! Whilst my services were awful, Sabri's were very good and often times nearly led us to win scores but when it came to the crucial moment, there was always something that made us fail to convert our advantages. But we had fun and thoroughly enjoyed the game despite being beaten. Somewhere later we were rewarded for our diplomatic efforts. Datuk Ghazi was so pleased that the match had ended in a draw and may be especially so because his match had carried the day, that he gave each of our players a special tennis shirt with their team's logos on it as a present and memento.

It was the tennis match of the year as far as we are concerned. Of course by way of a foot note, we will from now on make Sundays our practice day for tennis, for we know sooner or later the Datuk might ask for a return match. God willing, the next time around, we will be prepared !