If you’ve played much doubles in tennis, there’s a good chance you can (unfortunately) relate to a play that happened on Monday in Melbourne.
Henri Kontinen and John Peers were playing a doubles match against Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah in the Australian Open’s Round of 16, when Kontinen hit a rocket… right at the back of Peers’ head.
Ouch:
Welp, I doubt Peers found it as funny as ESPN’s Brad Gilbert did.
But, this is what’s scary about doubles — as well as racquetball — as I found out far too many times in high school. When you’re playing the net and have your back turned, you’re trusting your partner to not hit you. It’s obviously going to happen a lot more when you’re not very good — like me and the people I played with — and have bad accuracy. You don’t see it happen too much in professional tennis, especially when talking blasts to the head.
Anyway, not only was Peers just fine to continue the match, but he and Kontinen pulled out a victory (6-7, 7-6, 7-6) to move on to the quarterfinals.
[ESPN 2]
