BEING BERNIE
‘Pick up my racquet and try and do my job’: Challenge accepted Bernie
WHEN the Gold Coast’s Bernard Tomic crashed out of Wimbledon he told his critics to “pick up my racquet and try and do my job”. So comedian David Tieck did.
I HAD a window of opportunity to be a professional tennis player once. I was around 11 years old and I won a summer tennis camp singles championship, despite having a broken arm.
It was my non-playing arm sure, but it still impressed an eccentric American coach. He took me under his tutelage and urged me to head to Florida for a tennis academy.
I chose instead to become epically shy, overweight, super short, and heavily bullied. The thought of me ever becoming a tennis pro would get me laughed out of the room.
I stand by my choice. Yet I regularly get consumed with some solid “what if?” pondering. So when Bernard Tomic, after being lambasted across the world for crashing out of Wimbledon in the first round and claiming he was bored, responded by telling his detractors they should “Pick up my racquet and try and do my job” I instantly vowed to do just that.
I always wanted to know what it would really be like to be a professional tennis player, and so this past week, I spent every waking moment finding out.
PREPARATION Before undertaking any extreme challenge the most important thing is to spend time wildly fantasising about how amazing your life will soon be.
I dream that I’ll play so much tennis this week, I’ll probably unlock a gift and accidentally end up winning the US Open later this year.
I fantasise about all the weight I’m going to lose. Plus my girlfriend demands I hang out with models to really do this right, and live the professional tennis player lifestyle. A boy can fantasise right?
Yep I’m off to a flying start and I haven’t even begun. This is going to be a breeze.
DAY ONE It’s 5.45am on Saturday and I am standing in a dirty urine-speckled alley behind my flat.
I can’t linger as I have a personal training session to attend. I ride my bike there, so arrive knackered, and then my new lovely trainer, a former circus performer named Colin, spends a solid hour with me explaining all the many, many ways I am likely to injure myself this week. It turns out the human body is comprised of literally dozens of parts, and every one of them HATES tennis.
Your tendons, muscles, bones and plasma membrane sarcolemmas spend most of their time sitting around getting fiery from knocking back bourbons. Fortunately, many of these imminent injuries can be stopped. Unfortunately, one of the main things you need to do is squats.
So many squats. So many kinds of squats. Pigeon foot squats, bowleg squats, even something called a “sissy squat”, which somehow, despite being named after the term of endearment my classmates would regularly adorn me with, before ironically pushing me in the mud, are actually really hard.
Squatted to hell and back, and I’m back on my bike now, racing to the courts. It’s time, FINALLY for TENNIS!
I’ve hooked up a hit with someone special in the tennis world, a man named Peter
who has gone all the way to Centre Court at the Australian Open. As a linesman. We have a lovely match (I won). I fail to get him to spill gossip on which players are rudest, and after a day of pain, I remember something I’d completely forgotten – tennis is fun.
DAY TWO
Morning run. Egg whites. Stretching and squats. Chicken breast and salad. Tennis practice. Brown rice and vegetables. Applying Deep Heat and covering blisters with sports tape. More tennis. This is my life now.
DAY THREE
I catch myself randomly singing a song. The melody is fun and jaunty, and the lyrics are super easy to remember, and are as follows:
“Tennis, tennis, tennis, tennis, tennis, tennis, tennis, tennis, tennis, tennis, tennis.”
I have no idea when I wrote it, but it’s super catchy. If my pro tennis career fails to take off perhaps I’ll switch to attempting to be a pop star. My week as Katy Perry anyone?
I have my first official coaching session with my new coach Max, who asks if I want to really be put through professional player paces, or just get a regular lesson. “Give me the full workout,” I reply.
It turns out a big part of being trained as a pro is having a coach drill you until you nearly puke. I think that’s why tennis players wear those arm bands, it’s to soak up any vomit they accidentally cough up.
DAY FOUR
Pain is great right? I think we can all agree on that.
Well check this out, I’ve now got nothing BUT pain – physically, emotionally and psychologically.
Also, and I don’t know if it’s physical exhaustion, or the fact I’ve been drinking five litres of tap water a day, but I’ve been attacked by “jelly brain”.
I even show up to tennis coaching without a racquet. How can I pick up a racquet and try Bernard’s job if I don’t have one?
I labour through more tennis, and fail miserably to attempt some sprint work. I get a massage and even that is nothing but extreme pain.
I truly can’t handle this. I just want to lie on the floor, cry and say swear words to ease the pain. But I can’t swear, right. Unless I coin a new one. Flunshtunkt!!!
I go to sleep. In all my dreams I am viciously hurt, and in all of them I still have to play tennis.
DAY FIVE
I wake up in agony. It feels like I have been doing this challenge for six months. It’s only five days. I hate this. I HATE it!
Then I start hitting the ball well in my morning session. Tennis is powerful, man. I love this. I LOVE it!
I’m a tennis king. I am lord of the racquet. I’m a fluffy golden ball-coloured god!
DAY SIX
I see an ad for a new KFC product that looks so much like my kind of food that normally I’d race to the nearest KFC, and my first thought today is “I guess I HAVE to try that, but I really don’t want to”. What the hell has happened to me?
I actually like brown rice and veggies. I actually like salad and chicken breast. I could actually be healthy. After 40 years of junk craving, did I become a healthy adult this week?
Today on top of huge amounts of cardio, and another game of tennis, I also have a media commitment. A company is considering making me its new spokesperson.
I have to take time off my valuable training to twice go into offices and be filmed pretending to be really interested in a product, that in reality I am extremely interested in.
DAY SEVEN
So what did I learn?
It’s been a rollercoaster of a week. My moods have been pierced with soaring highs and sore-riddled lows. I’ve lost a full 8cm off my gut in just seven days. My diet has improved remarkably. A healthy competitive spirit is returning. I have reignited a long dormant love of playing sports. I’ve signed up for a regular social tennis competition. It’s been an incredible week.
So do I still dream of being a professional tennis player?
No Flunshtunkty way!