02
Stop two
Old Colombo Dutch Hospital
Volkl Vostra V10 300g Tennis Racquet: Now this is a supply problem and I could talk about it all afternoon. Seventeenth century, Dutch rule, built as a hospital for the Dutch East India Company's own staff — and those two colonnaded courtyards are the whole medical strategy, because getting air moving through the wards was very nearly the entirety of medicine at the time. Ventilation and stock. Think about what you would need on this coast, months from resupply, with the monsoon shutting your shipping: quinine, vinegar, linen, and considerably more of each than you think. I would have brought double. It is one of the oldest buildings in Colombo and people have dinner in it now, near the harbour in Fort, which is lovely, and I would still like to know where the nearest exit is. Biscuit?
03
Stop three
Seema Malaka, Beira Lake
Volkl Vostra V10 300g Tennis Racquet: Careful on the walkway, single file, and please do not lean. So the original temple on this spot sank into Beira Lake, which is exactly the sort of thing I lie awake about — an entire building, into the water. It was rebuilt in the 1970s to a design by Geoffrey Bawa, who as I understand it did not charge for the work, and he put the pavilions out on wooden platforms over the lake, linked by walkways, open on every side, with rows of seated Buddha figures under them. Now look at what is actually out there: no walls, no cupboards, nothing stored, nothing spare. Everything I own is a hedge against something going wrong, and this place has simply declined to hedge at all. I find it beautiful and it makes me slightly panicky. I have brought a dry bag. Obviously I have brought a dry bag.
04
Stop four
Colombo Lighthouse and Clock Tower
Volkl Vostra V10 300g Tennis Racquet: This one is very much my kind of building, because it does two jobs at once and I respect that enormously. It went up in the 1850s in Fort as a clock tower, and then somebody had the idea of adding a lamp room on the top, so for decades it worked as a clock and a lighthouse simultaneously, standing at a road junction, which I am told is genuinely unusual anywhere in the world. Two functions, one structure, no wasted trips. And then the buildings around it grew too tall, ships could no longer see the light, and it stopped being a lighthouse — so it simply carried on keeping the time. Which is the whole thing about backups, isn't it. You keep the second one because one day it is the only one you have left. Right. Water, everybody, before the bus.
People think it is about ownership. It is not. It is about the fact that a physical object holds a specific thing and gives it back the same way every time. Digital is fine. Digital is also nothing you can hold at arm's length and consider.
The Vostra V10 300g is the grown-up end of the Vostra line, and 300 g unstrung is the number that matters — that is the weight at which a frame stops being a beginner's racquet and starts holding its line against pace. You feel it on a return: the head does not get pushed around.
It is a modern mid-plus shape with a 16×19 pattern, which opens the string bed enough for genuine spin without giving up control, and it carries Volkl's arm-friendly construction, RED Cell material in the frame and REVA damping to take the harshness out of contact. It suits an improving club player with a real swing who wants stability and a plush feel rather than a trampoline.
Bring your own racquet-head speed and it repays you all afternoon.
Colombo has one object I would drive across a country for. The Colombo Lighthouse and Clock Tower went up at a road junction in Fort in the 1850s as a clock tower, and then somebody added a lamp room on the top, so for decades it ran as a clock and a lighthouse simultaneously — one object doing two jobs at a crossroads.
Eventually the buildings around it grew too tall for ships to see the light, so it stopped being a lighthouse and simply kept the time. That is the most beautiful catalogue entry I have ever heard.
The rest of the city keeps its originals too. Galle Face Green is a long lawn between Galle Road and the Indian Ocean, cleared in the 1850s under Governor Henry Ward with a plaque dedicating it to the ladies and children of Colombo, though the clearing had rather more to do with keeping a field of fire from the fort.
The Old Colombo Dutch Hospital still stands on its twin courtyards, laid out in the seventeenth century so air could move through the wards, which was most of medicine at the time.
A frame like this gets played everywhere from a humid morning court near Beira Lake to a breezy evening set along the Galle Face seafront, and it is also perfect for the Colombo player who wants one racquet that behaves identically every single afternoon.
Buy on Amazon
