Tennis Thiéré: New balls please!

April in Paris, chestnuts in blossom and perfect weather for tennis. It was warm and sunny and I didn't have to think twice about whether to wear a skirt - in fact I was even brave enough  to wear it to walk to the court which was in our neighbourhood along a little back road behind Bastille. I'm not sure why we've never played there before because it is probably the closest court to our apartment.

The court was bathed in sunshine when we arrived at 10am. It was the perfect time to play - not only did we pay the reduced rate (€5.40 for an hour) but the sun was not yet at its height. Although my partner moaned like mad at being disadvantaged by not having his sunglasses - needless to say I had mine.
 The biggest problem with this court (and there is only one court) is that there is no netting around the outside. The wall of a neighbouring building forms one boundary and there is a high fence to separate the court from the road, but otherwise there was just a low, metal bar - the kind of thing you might tie your horse to if you had arrived on one! This led to lots of scrabbling around in the surrounding undergrowth and ducking under the bar to retrieve balls.
The court surface is the ever popular concrete block construction which was in a reasonable state this time, but marked out for handball as well as tennis which was sometimes confusing. Another distraction was provided by a huge crane delivering an air-conditioning unit to a neighbouring building - not the sort of thing you expect to see dangling over your head when you look up to hit your serve.

On the whole though I loved this little court surrounded by windows and balconies - I'd love a flat with a view of a tennis court. Maybe it was the warm sun or the blue sky or the magnolia on the court side, but I felt as if I was on holiday. And in fact the stray ball problem turned out to our advantage as we went home with an extra ball! And I won again too...

Tennis Thiéré

9-11 passage Thiéré

75011 Paris