The grass courts at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club are showing the wear and tear of the pounding of feet as the top tennis players in the world pursue the title and the pay check that comes with it, along with a rather nice trophy and bragging rights. The endorsements monies that follow are apt to be much larger than the prize money.

Most of these players started playing before age ten so have mastered their skills with several hours a day striking the balls, plus hours in developing strong muscles and flexibility. The Downieville Tennis and Education Association focus was not that serious, rather stressing social and ethical points with having fun a major target. It is true though that three of the Downieville High School Warriors did go from the one court program on to play college tennis.

The 18 grass courts at Wimbledon featured 128 first round singles matches with 11 of the 16 USA women and 4 of the 13 men out. In the 2nd round of 32, 4 women won as did 4 of the men. In the 3rd round of 16, it was two each with Jennifer Pegula and Madison Keys surviving along with Frances Tiafoe and Christopher Eubanks, each guaranteed 340,000 pounds which is approximately $435,000.

The saying “The luck of the draw” was evident in bad luck as four of the USA women played each other in the first round and one played last year’s champion. Venus Williams too lost in the first round.

The USTA (United States Tennis Association) has Challenger tournaments for the up and coming professional men players, one of which is played in Fairfield, a three hour drive from Downieville. Seen over the past few years have been thirteen of the players in the Wimbledon tournament being played now including Frances Tiafoe, Denis Shapalov. Christopher O’Connell, Taylor Fritz, Mackenzie McDonald, Michael Mmoh, Tommy Paul,

Cameron Norrie, and Casper Ruud, who all won at least their first matches this past week. As of Sunday four of them were still in the contest having won three matches, so approximately $167,000 take home.

Seating at the matches in Fairfield is about twenty feet from the sidelines so fans get to view the best very close indeed. The tournament is held at the Solano Community College courts in October. This venue is definitely more convenient than is London!

As of Monday, only one USA man was left in the tournament- Christopher Eubanks, a 6 foot 7 inch 27 year old, and two women- Madison Keys and Jessica Pegula. Here again the luck of the draw enters its influence with Eubanks taking on the #3 Medvedev while Pegula is slated to play the top seed, Iga Swiatek, and Keys taking on the 2nd seeded player Aryna Sabalenka. In a way though, if you are going to win the tournament, maybe it is better to beat the top ranked players earlier in the tournament when you are not so worn out.

My pick changes now since Swiatek lost to Elina Svitolina of the Ukraine to get to the semi-finals while Sabalenka still holds for the women’s finals and in the men’s, Alcaraz vs. Djokovic with Eubanks having lost. All these players should take home checks large enough to help them keep paying their coaches, trainers, dietitians, agents and all those other little incidentals, right?

MM’s Johnsen is USPTA Elite pro #301 and USOC Volunteer Coach of the Year- Tennis- 2003.