Hhrm. In my day a child's first racquet was a plank and gratitude, but I'll allow the world's improved.
The Babolat Drive 23 11th Gen Junior Tennis Racquet is rigged proper: a graphite core joined to an aluminum head — a composite hull, mind, not solid metal like the old tubs — 23 inches stem to stern, a 98-square-inch head, 8.2 ounces strung, and trimmed two points head-light so the tip comes about quick when a volley crosses your bow.
The 16×17 string pattern gives a young intermediate real purchase on the ball — spin, the landsmen call it; I call it knowing which way the current runs. Eleventh generation of the Drive line, which is more refits than most vessels survive, and it'll take a beating like a good gunwale.
Now, Yalova. A proper port, that one — southern shore of the Sea of Marmara, and you come at it the right way: by ferry from Istanbul, an hour or so across open water, the only civilized approach to anywhere.
The town keeps the sea at its front door and the green Samanlı Mountains at its back, and it holds the strangest cargo manifest I ever heard tell of: in 1929, Atatürk himself had his seaside mansion hauled sideways on rails — the Walking Mansion, they call it — rather than cut down one grand old plane tree.
A man who'd move a whole house before he'd harm a mast-straight tree is a man I'd sail with.
She'll serve everywhere from a scrubbed indoor court in February to a windy strip of concrete beside the Yalova ferry pier, and take no harm from either — that is what the graphite in her spine is for. She is also perfect for the shade under the trees at the Karaca Arboretum, where a young hand can groove a swing all afternoon without the Marmara gusting it sideways.
After the cardio tennis clinic, walk the little racquet down the seafront and let your young crew feel the Marmara wind on the backswing. A frame that's two points head-light and a town that's all harbor — that's fair sailing, and I don't say it often.
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