We could feel the atmosphere of sports again, where there are sneakers, strings break, and when you leave the court you still look like a normal person. After two years of beach tennis I finally know all of its good things and bad ones. Some of them I remember only in such moments, when I can compare. So, if beach tennis players could be called travelling artists, who roll in the dirty sand with billions of bacterial, but tennis players – the real stars of show business: a fresh manicure, hair without the sand, the perfect hairstyle during matches. Everything is clean and tidy in the bag. Of course during clay ground season there are more socks become dirty than usual, ground patterns are familiar for fans to play in the summer. But this problem is out of the question. Hiding my tennis racket under the iron board, I forgot what are the wounds from shoes, and tennis tan (the one with shirt, skirt and socks). It is in the past! Yey! Now there is only wonderful white strip on my back from my top. And you know why, because it's impossible to change clothes after the match in a bikini and back all the time. Seriously, playing 50 metres away from the sea, after three tournaments you already don’t want to run to swim screaming "Banzai", just as in St.Petersburg you won’t go every day to see the bridges. This too mainstream…

By the way, this is a great idea for beach sponsors, who make shampoos and sun protectors; you are welcome as partners of beach tennis tournaments! I hate to wash my hair, but thanks to beach tennis I do it more often than my mother, who is a lover of cleanliness. During tournaments I wondered how difficult to be a real professional tennis player. Seriously, imagine that all your life is on 70% consists of travelling to the tournaments and on 20% of journeys to different places for training. And every week you have to pack and to go somewhere. And then again have to unpack, pack the bag for a match again, then remove and wash dirty clothes, and so and so. In two days of the trip I always forget where are the things in my backpack. And every time I try to get something important it looks like I search for the pyramid of Tutankhamun. And then my things are just everywhere in my hotel room, waiting to be packed to my bag.

But beach tennis players have advantages over tennis players. The first, we’ve already noticed, the opportunity to be a tourist. The second (sometimes is disadvantage) is bt players spend more time at home and have more opportunities for communicate in society. And so, while I sit at home and grow fat, I slowly drawn into hot topic - crisis. It's everywhere: under table of my grandmother where she keeps million jars of jam, in grocery stores, where the milk costs 50 rubles with discount, in restaurants with their anti-crisis menu, and even on the beach courts. The most spent things in beach tennis are balls and grips. And at “no tournament” period when you can’t take balls from competition, they just become priceless. So, there are two kinds of training balls: "ok for basket" and "good for playing". The first ones are usually available and enough, the others are carefully stored in the bags of players and get only in special cases of games with the score. There are also "new balls", but I guess it is a legend and only elite players can see them)). All of these thoughts came to me when I tried to use the grip with clean inside part. Not because I've run out of grips, but new grips are for games only.

Spring came, my friends! Let’s hit with beach tennis to crisis!!!

Translated by Ekaterina Bobkova