By Scoop Malinowski
You never know what you will see on a public tennis court. In my lifetime I’ve seen – a lizard, a snake, a deer, Grand Slam champions (Martin Damm, Daniel Vacek), a fistfight, a crow steal a Lemon Lara Bar, a guy singing with a microphone and amp (Warren Brady) and today marked a significant new experience.
Al Cirulli was practicing his serves, forehands and backhands two courts down from us. My friend Dave walked over to get a shanked shot and a few seconds of small talk revealed Al is 96 year old. He started at 8-9:30am on the Holmes Beach public courts with his friends and then stayed for another hour working on his shots with his ball basket.
He plays “almost every morning” at the courts with his friends “who let me play with them.”
The Yonkers, NY snowbird started in tennis in his 40s and is still going strong fifty years later. He just started tinkering with a new – though old – racquet given from a friend, the twenty year old Head Tsi6 and likes the way it feels a little lighter and more powerful than his Wilson Sledgehammer 2.8.
Roger Federer is Al’s favorite player because “he can do everything, attack, volley, play offense, defense, he was my idol.”
After his near three hours on the court, the lefthander happily agreed to hit some more balls and invited us to hit again another day, before driving off for lunch.
To see a 96 year old man playing tennis is one of the most awesome sights I’ve ever seen on a tennis court.
Al Cirulli · Asics · Florida · Head · Holmes Beach · Yonkers