One does not wear just anything. This is the Eclipsion 5, which is the stability shoe of the line, and stability is the quality the discerning player buys once he has stopped being impressed by lightness.

The construction, since you asked: synthetic fibre and resin over a rubber sole in Endurance Rubber II, Feather Bounce foam working with Power Cushion underneath, a Power Graphite Sheet for support, an inner bootie so the foot is held rather than merely contained, a rounded sole and heel contact geometry for smoother loading, Double Raschel Mesh for air, and the Toe Assist Shape at the front.

Standard fit, all-court, and 365 grams in a 26.0 centimetre — which is to say it has some substance, and substance is the entire point.

Let me explain that number, since lesser shoes will try to embarrass it. Weight in a court shoe is not automatically a fault; the fault is weight that does nothing.

Here it is doing something specific — the graphite sheet and the bootie construction are holding your foot precisely where you put it during a hard lateral change, and Endurance Rubber II exists because most people wear a hole in the outsole long before the shoe is otherwise finished. Obviously.

A shoe that survives the season is cheaper than two that do not.

Which brings me to Nakuru, chosen because it is one of the few places on earth I consider adequately spectacular.

Lake Nakuru is a soda lake, and it has been a rhino sanctuary since 1983, and the flamingos there gather in numbers that make even me pause — a mass of pink on an alkaline lake, and every one of them standing perfectly still and being looked at, which I understand completely. Not a hill.

Above the city sits the Menengai crater, 483 metres from the rim down to the caldera floor.

A collapsed volcano the size of an argument. One rather approves.

A great many birds gather at that lake purely to be looked at. I have never felt so understood.

Buy on Amazon