Madam, - Johnny Watterson's article on the Irish Open Tennis Championships and his passing reference to Maria Bueno's participation catapulted me back to a Monday morning in the late 1970s when I was commuting to my summer job (Sports, June 28th).
I was on the bus from An Lár to Castleknock when I saw in The Irish Times that I was scheduled to play Maria Bueno at 2pm in the first round of the Irish Open. I was only in my second week as a tennis coach to a group of foreign students so decided I had better present myself for work and then ask for time off to play the great Brazilian.
I coached for three hours and took two buses back to my flat, where I grabbed some decent whites. Then it was on my bicycle to Fitzwilliam, where I arrived panting to check in at 1.45pm.
We played the match on a centre court in front of a packed stand. To this day, I can remember the incredible accuracy of Maria Bueno's shots. She did not blast me off the court, but ran me at angles I had never known existed.
I learned more in the 17 minutes it took her to demolish me than I could have picked up from a whole library of tennis and psychology manuals.
That match will never go down in history as one of the classics. Analysed as a little piece of social history, it shows that Irish tennis was shrouded in amateurism a few short years ago.
It will take many years to build strong enough professional roots for us to produce a Wimbledon champion. The big challenge, though, is to ensure that we do not destroy all the pleasure which the game can bring to children and young people generally in our quest to develop that professionalism. - Yours, etc,
JEAN TUBRIDY, Sweet Briar Lawn, Tramore, Co Waterford.