Tennis

Its popularity is constantly in crescendo, from the local courts in tiny towns to the tremendous tournaments and tours, and even on the tv sets it graces all across the universe. Aces, grab your rackets and wrist bands and get ready to bounce balls back and forth. We’re all set to play a few sets of the smashing sport of tennis on this week’s episode of FYI!

Special thanks to my guest Ximena Holliday

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its popularity is constantly in crescendo from the local courts in tiny towns to the tremendous tournaments and tours and even on the tv sets it graces all across the universe aces grab your rackets and wristbands and get ready to bounce balls back and forth[Applause] we're all set to play a few sets of the smashing sport of tennis on this week's episode of f y i welcome to for your info english you got it[Music] hello hello hello and welcome to another exciting edition of fyi i hope you guys have been enjoying all the episodes and remember i am all ears if you have suggestions i always listen to my students because remember this content is for you guys it's not for me so if you're not liking it or if there's something that you think i can improve on please let me know i would love to do that and you can contact me via social media i think it's the easiest way you can find everything on my website albertoalonso.com and if you guys haven't raided the show yet baloradlo please do that because obviously that helps us get seen by more people now before we get started here's a little disclaimer i'm not really into tennis i have never watched a full match and i've been to live matches so you can just imagine what i was doing while i was over at the bar i was a little bit bored so i guess my challenge in this episode was to fall in love with tennis and you know what i think it worked because i discovered all different aspects not just the game just like when we looked at football remember there's an episode on soccer or football call it what you like but there's so much more than just 11 guys chasing a ball around so the same thing with tennis there's so much more than meets the eye and it worked i ended this episode at least researching it saying this is an amazing game and i know it's popular and that's why i said in the intro its popularity is constantly in crescendo crescendo from the local courts las pistas locales in tiny towns tiny tiny separation tiny towns to the tremendous the opposite tremendous tournaments and tours yes tournaments and even on the tv sets and even tambien in los televisores it graces and to grace we've looked at this verb before onrad so we would say freddie mercury graced this stage and then i had a beatles reference there all across the universe and it's true tennis like soccer is popular worldwide and then i said aces and an ace is i said aces grab your rackets and wristbands and these aren't very popular unless you're a tennis player but a wrist is your munyka and so if a headband goes around your forehead tu frente well where does a wristband go you guessed it around your wrist and then i said get ready to bounce balls[Music] and then i had a little play on words here another pun i was trying to be punny i said we're all set to play a few sets all set is estamos listos preparados to play a few sets of the smashing sport of tennis and there's a double meaning behind smashing too because smashing in british english is amazing but also to smash something is what they do with the ball you know those guys like nadal these guys who have a really really really hard serve well they smash the ball so see lots of double entendres lots of double meanings in the intro we didn't even get to the origin but speaking of double entendre which is a french word the word tennis is a late middle english word which is tenets and it comes from a similar sport called real tennis and real being real like real madrid but we'll talk about that a little bit later we're just talking about the etymology of the word right now and that word the middle english word tenets came from the old french word tenez which is take receive see taking receiving and it reminds me of the expression it's a little give and take and we're going to look at some idiomatic expressions that have to do with tennis in the bonus part plus we're going to hear from tons of famous tennis players about speaking english we're going to hear their take su opinion so we've got a lot of exciting things to do and i just want to remind you guys that there's a bonus episode every week there are also pdf documents with all the vocabulary all the expressions and all the structures therein and you can be in weekly and monthly classes with yours truly and you want more you can be a part of an amazing curious community so if you want more information go over to patreon.com slash alberto alonso and find out more you'll have access to over 700 posts the moment you sign up that is a lot of english content so i want to send a shout out to all my patrons especially my super duper students javier roberto david jose maria mila alex and edgar and don't forget about my interstellar students issa paco diego and carmen keep up the great work and if you guys want more information just go over to patreon.com alberto alonso as always we're going to start by defining it because from the definition we can get a lot of vocabulary so before we get into things we always like to start with the bare bones so tennis is a racket sport there are many racket sports as you know that can be played individually against a single opponent that's called singles or between two teams of two players and that's called doubles i think up to now it's pretty self-explanatory then each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with a chord so to string something esponele una and to strike a chord this is an interesting expression to strike a chord i believe in spanish you say tocar la fibra sensible and then you use a hollow rubber ball you strike to strike esperar a hollow hallowes rubber goma a hollow rubber ball covered with felt and i believe felt as field and you strike it you hit it over or around a net and into the opponent's court the object of the game is to maneuver the ball in such a way that the opponent is not able to play a valid return and the last sentence says the player who is unable inca path to return the ball validly will not gain a point while the opposite player will guys that's tennis in a nutshell now i know there's much more strategy behind it and tennis as we know is an olympic sport it's played at all levels of society like i said on small local courts by people of all ages and it can be played with i mean you okay you do need a court you do need a net or do you because if you have a racket two rackets and a ball you've got a little volley going on and tavali evidently is darle a bolea algo i think we mentioned the same thing in the soccer episode i mean you can have goal posts you know or you can just have two shirts but that's not gonna stop you from playing not having goal posts not having a net you can still play you just have to agree where that imaginary net is the modern game of tennis originated in birmingham england yeah we don't say birmingham we say birmingham and that was in the late 19th century it was a kind of lawn tennis and lonnis un fesped so it was played on a lawn and it had very close connections to other games similar games such as croquet and bowls these are things that people played back in the day that are not as popular anymore and that was called as i said before real tennis or royal tennis and historians believe that the game's ancient origin even before that comes from 12th century northern france so the the modern game i guess you can say 19th century but the roots the inspiration for the modern game is 12th century northern france where they played a game where a ball was struck there's that word strike again with the palm of your hand does that sound familiar hand ball that's still played to this day well in france it was called je de pam the game of the palm which evolved into real tennis and real tennis developed into the tennis we have today louis the tenth of france well he was very notable because he was unhappy with playing tennis outdoors alai de libre so he had an indoor court built this was in the 13th century in paris and his idea spread like wildfire before you knew it you started seeing all the royal palaces have their own tennis courts and they look nothing like the tennis courts we know today in fact the early ones they were not rectangular they had the shape of an hourglass you know like that kind of guitar shape but an interesting thing is that the rules haven't changed very much at least since the 1890s with two exceptions two major exceptions the first one is that until 1961 the server had to keep one foot on the ground at all times hey that sounds like the pivot foot in basketball and then the other one was the adoption of the tie break in the 1970s another way we can say it is to draw tambien sustantivo a draw another thing that has changed not so much a rule but the technology they have adopted this electronic review technology and a point challenge system so tennis is one of the sports that has embraced akohido this technology as we know it took soccer a lot longer and even now the var is quite controversial but they use a system called the hawk eye el ojo de alcon oh and speaking of hawks there's a hawk a harris hawk named rufus a real one who is stationed at wimbledon to keep the sky clear of local pigeons yeah you don't want any droppings on the court and droppings are bird poop i don't know how to translate that more clearly and this hawk is not your average hawk nope he has more than ten thousand followers on twitter but you gotta watch him like a hawk okay i just wanted to use the expression all right well we're gonna hear more about wimbledon later in fact we're gonna hear from a friend of mine many of you might know her her name is simena holliday she's written many books she has a radio show she's one of my greatest friends and one of the best teachers i've ever met and she worked as a ball girl in wimbledon but we're gonna hear from her a little bit later on let's take a look at the governing body the governing body the ones who look after the rules of the game and the dress code which i know is very important in tennis as well this is called the international tennis federation as i said i'm learning things i didn't know those initials so there's another thing that i learned in this episode another thing i learned tennis has four grand slam tournaments now i know what you're thinking alberto you didn't know that i told you tennis is not my cup of tea so i didn't know that no there are four grand slam tournaments they're also referred to as the majors and they are especially popular the australian open which is played on hard courts the french open which is played on red clay courts wimbledon which is played on grass courts and the us open which is also played on hard courts so see there's some information i'm sure many people who follow tennis know but let's pretend that there are some people listening today and i'm sure there are that know nothing about tennis they know jack about tennis and to know jack about something is papa okay tennis buffs here's a trivia question for you what is the oldest major championship did you say wimbledon you got it i think that was an easy one though especially if you're a tennis fan that's right the wimbledon championships which is almost synonymous with tennis is the oldest tennis tournament in the world it's also considered to be the most prestigious and that was in 1877 in 1881 the us open was founded the french open in 1891 and the last one of the major ones the australian in 1905. but there's no doubt that when you think of tennis wimbledon is the word and as promised we are going to hear from my friend now my friend simena holliday who was a ball girl at wimbledon and let me tell you how cutthroat this is only 250 young kids are selected every year to serve at the tournament and well they use an estimated 54 250 tennis balls per tournament so you do the math but either way let's hear from simena hello alberto hello fyis how are you all doing i hope very well and yes i wanted to tell you a little bit about my well my greatest claim to fame being a wimbledon ball girl in 1999 ah there's been nothing better since it was now honestly it was the greatest two weeks of my life it was so much fun we were well we were selected and you were able to take part in school trials to take part in wimbledon and i was selected to to be a ball girl at wimbledon and well the training itself was very very intense very demanding um so to get through that it was already an achievement and then to actually be able to walk out onto those courts and be part of well really history um it was the most amazing feeling unfortunately i was not selected for uh center court or the court number one due to me not actually fully understanding the tie break which is you know quite fundamental in tennis and yeah i completely messed up the so i threw the balls i rolled the balls to the wrong side of the court during the tie break and the man in charge willie i'm pretty sure something like willy wonka willie something looked at me and was just like no relegated you're relegated to court 19 which is pretty much where i stayed throughout the two weeks but actually caught 19. that's that's like the cool course that's the fun ones you don't have to take it all so seriously there's not so much pressure and it was wonderful so yeah two weeks of sunshine meeting loads of new people people from around the world coming to visit the championships obviously the tennis players um got a very black knee because i was at the center of the you know they're called like the centers and so you kneel down on one knee and run out whenever the ball comes towards you and my knee was completely black for what about a year after it wouldn't come out it was ingrained or the dirt um but yeah we got we got paid 90 pounds so that works out at approximately what 10 p an hour it was worth every penny uh no but i would have done it for free it was obviously just such a privilege to be selected and to be there and on court 19 as it rained a lot in 1999 we did actually get um some famous players on our court i got to burger for the goronie venisovich versus todd martin match which was very exciting although goron of vanessa got so angry that he uh threw down chucked down his racket it rebounded onto my head so yeah another claim to fame there um my friend also she got onto center court and boris becker did like a 100 mile an hour serve or however fast they are and it hit her leg so you know she felt very um very proud despite the pain yes so wimbledon is a magical place honestly if you're ever around in london in june i completely recommend you do the queues you can buy day tickets by queueing up pretty early but they're very reasonably priced considering how much you can see and go along and enjoy the atmosphere the strawberries and cream there's uh henman hill that i think has been renamed murray's mound or something like that and it's just a fascinating place a place full of history and culture and yeah i have very very very many happy memories from my time at wimbledon anyway thank you for letting me go down memory lane and reminisce alberto and as i said get to wimbledon when you can thank you so much simena that was not only informative it was also funny what an experience it must have been and we're going to talk a little bit more about wimbledon and then we're going to hear from another famous person well yes ximena holliday is famous in my world in the vaughan world but we're also going to hear from nadal in just a little bit but let's wrap up talking about wimbledon did you guys know this perhaps you knew it perhaps this is trivia that everybody knows but i didn't know this the winner's trophy at wimbledon remains on display at the all england club's museum why because the winners don't take it home what i won the trophy and i can't take it home nope you get a little replica you don't get the original and it's a small replica it's a tiny one to use the word we used at the beginning but don't worry i'll give you more fun facts in the bonus part of today's show also a player is said to have won a career grand slam if they win all four majors at any time during their career so that's called a career grand slam a non-calendar year grand slam is if they win four majors consecutively but not in the same year and a grand slam is if they win all four majors in a single year and if you remember from our baseball episode a grand slam is a good thing in baseball too and i'm sure you know this as people who are learning english but english is the official language of the tennis tour and many players find it indispensable to at least know the basics in order to get by not just in a press conference but also in an interview or if they need to talk to one of the umpires so as promised we're going to hear from rafa nadal right now and what he says is that not knowing english was good fun because he didn't care about making mistakes but he says it's not good so that's amazing somebody who didn't really speak english is being punny is being funny in english no establishment listen to it at the end he says not knowing english was good fun but not good it's brilliant nice job rafa let's hear what rafa has to say about learning english for me was much more fun before i i don't care about what i was saying and just i only had a few words and that's it so it was fun not knowing english good fun but was not good what a great sense of humor he has and you can see it if you check out his earlier videos his english has improved tremendously another guy who loves languages djokovic now he's a self-described lover of languages he speaks serbian english french german and italian fluently he can also speak an additional six languages those are chinese spanish arabic russian portuguese and japanese so you could say that this guy really loves languages and we're going to hear from him in the bonus episode today but we're going to wrap up this first part with a quote from arthur ashe who was the first american the first excuse me the first african-american to win the u.s open this was in 1968 and i thought this was a great quote for language learners start where you are use what you have do what you can guys i hope you'll join us in the bonus part right now the ball is in your court el balones i sure hope you'll join us in the bonus part of today's fyi[Music][Music][Applause] you