| Top Ten Why Tennis is Tougher than Hoops | |
Caution: Some basketball fans who do not detect a hint of David Letterman in the following may experience an unsafe rise in blood pressure.
March Madness? Final Four? With all of this fuss about the NCAA Tournament, you'd think it was difficult for five really big guys to help each other put a nice, fat, slow-moving ball into a basket. Here's my completely objective, utterly non-partisan list of the top ten reasons why tennis is tougher.
10. If you miss a shot in tennis, you can't just jump up, grab the ball, and try again.
9. When's the last time an NCAA basketball player had to make a shot with the sun in his eyes?
8. When a tennis player is seeing the ball incredibly well, he'll say it seems as big as a grapefruit. How big is a basketball?
7. When you get tired in tennis, your coach can't just take you out and put someone else in your place.
6. How often does a college basketball player have a perfectly good shot blown out of bounds by the wind?
5. If a basketball player places a shot a little longer than intended, no problem. There's a backboard to make the ball bounce in. No such luck in tennis.
4. Grand Slam tennis matches commonly go more than three hours. When's the last time you saw a three-hour basketball game?
3. If you're not making your shots in basketball, you can just pass the ball to someone who is. No such convenience in tennis.
2. Tennis players have to contend with a net running right across the middle of the court. I'd like to see how basketball players would cope.
1. Tennis balls move at up to 145 m.p.h.. Basketballs top out at around 30.
We in the media know that no matter how objective we try to be, there are always a few who perceive some sort of bias. If you feel that I haven't made a balanced presentation here, we welcome all manner of paranoid ravings at our tennis forum.
