Tennis in Paris

May 4th, 2018

Indoor courts at Elisabeth, near PSE

I played a lot of tennis as a teenager but, after high school, life got busier, school, work, and family took over, and my racket accumulated dust, 25 years' worth, in fact.  Somehow tennis seemed like something from an earlier life.  I should say that even when I was playing in high school, it was always the training, not the competition, I really liked:  running around, sweating, working on mechanics and footwork, and hitting the ball hard.  So a few years ago, I decided to sign up for tennis lessons, to see if I'd still enjoy the training.  I was hooked---I could not believe how much I enjoyed it and how I could have given it up entirely for so long.  I was intent on keeping up tennis during our year here.

Kate at MIT with Spritely, her coach

In addition, Kate had started taking lessons back in Boston, was improving quickly, and was thinking about going out for the high school team when we moved back to Newton.  So we needed to keep her momentum going.

Before we left, I said to Esther that the one thing I needed her help negotiating in France was tennis lessons.  (In fact, Esther helped us negotiate many things in France, such as contacting PSE on our behalf, suggesting neighborhoods where we might want to live, finding a real estate broker, recommending a housekeeper, writing a letter of recommendation for Kate's school, etc., etc.)  But I was serious about the tennis thing.

Esther pointed out the excellent system of municipal tennis courts in Paris and helped us set up on-line accounts for payment and court reservations.  There is a fairly large complex, Elisabeth, a 5-minute walk from PSE, with both indoor and outdoor courts.  I now play there quite regularly with Esther, Abhijit, Glenn, and two PSE compatriots we have recruited, Luc and Olivier. 

Shadows cast by trees onto the roof of the indoor courts at Elisabeth

I am surprised and pleased by the abundance of courts and their relative cheapness.  Even during peak hours, I pay 17 euros for an hour for an indoor court.  And, as long as I plan a few days in advance, it's rarely difficult to get a court for the day and time I want.  The system here has some built-in features to ensure a certain amount of equity.  One can only book at most a week in advance and only hold one reservation at a time.  It would be difficult, then, for someone, doing her own booking, to play on the municipal courts more than twice a week.  (If a foursome had an organized rotation of court booking among themselves, they could probably play almost every day.)  

There are, in fact, municipal courts all over Paris, and I should try out some of the others, too.  There is a famous set of courts in the Luxembourg Gardens, just minutes from our apartment, but they are the only municipal courts not on the on-line system.  I have not yet braved the byzantine in-person reservation system for those very sought-after courts.  (There is also a court, almost visible from our apartment window and empty virtually all of the time, that is reserved for the exclusive use of the French Sénat.  I guess the senators are not big tennis players.)    

I love playing with all of those PSE guys, but I did miss the intensity of training and lessons.  I had tried to find lessons or a private coach when I arrived, but I gave up after a while of fruitless searching.  (This search was not unrelated to my search for a tennis club to join that would also be the means for obtaining French Open tickets.)  By coincidence, one of the students who took the mini-class I taught at PSE stopped by my office and saw my tennis racket.  We started talking and he mentioned a coach that he used.  He was willing to put me in contact with Jean Pierre, with whom I have been training since.  Instead of playing on municipal courts, we play at a place called Aquaboulevard, which is a huge complex of various athletic courts, other exercise equipment, swimmings pools, shops, movie theaters, and restaurants.    

The story with Kate has been a little different.  Unlike for me, I managed to find small-group tennis lessons for Kate soon after we arrived.  They were held at an indoor (underground!) clay court fairly close to her school on Wednesday afternoons.  The court was awesome and this set-up seemed ideal at first but proved less so as the year went on.  If I had been more comfortable negotiating with the lesson providers in French, I think we could have found a better fit for her.  As it was, she ended up being by far the best player in her group and didn't seem to be getting useful instruction.  She is now playing with Jean Pierre as well and is getting a lot more out of that.

So, overall, tennis has worked out quite well here.  I will end with an absurd sign posted at the tennis courts at Aquaboulevard.  It's funny and weird in so many ways (although I hope and assume the small disclaimer at the bottom is actually meant to be funny).