TBM Sketches
Recorded in 2016—2017
Edited in 2024—2025
Video, Location Audio, Text
Aryna Sabalenka’s playing Qinwen Zheng in the French Open quarterfinals. When I was young, the Australian Open was a constant feature of summer evenings. Our small CRT’s pale light flickered over the furniture and walls, tinging everything slightly green, the colour of the Flinders Park courts at the time. Edberg, Lendl, Graf, Sánchez Vicario—names etched into my mind after summers of tennis.
I remember asking my mum why players would spit on the court and why Lendl seemed not to. She said it was because Lendl was a gentleman. Now, whenever I hear the word ‘gentleman’, I think of Ivan Lendl. I twin these memories with others from the period: running through sprinklers on the lawn at night, swimming in our wading pool, which would gradually fill with leaf litter from the silky oak it was placed under, leaves sticking to your skin as you splashed around.
I watch Sabalenka and Zheng play with a level of awe-inspiring power and also a deftness I didn’t expect from such big hitters, combining raw power with the touch of surgeons. Baseline forehands tear through the air, delicate drop shots clear the net by centimetres. The artistry and placement of their sliced backhands are captured in slow motion and played back on two large flatscreen televisions attached to the walls of the Kowloon Taproom, where I’m seated at a small table drinking my second beer, waiting for my girlfriend to get off work. We’re having dinner at an Indian restaurant close by. My stomach rumbles, already anticipating palak paneer. While I’m in dialogue with my stomach, Sabalenka wins the first set via a Zheng error. The man at the table in front of me applauds loudly and looks around to no one in particular. He eventually sees me and nods. I offer a slight nod in return, with which I want to convey: ‘Yep. Sabalenka won that set.’ Satisfied, he finishes the rest of his drink before heading out into the rain, which has been steadily coming down all afternoon.
I appreciate these small moments in the day when I can switch off for a bit and not have to worry about work, money, and everything else. Crossing the harbour to TST, drinking beer, and watching the tennis is my antidote to this modern life, which Blur memorably referred to as Rubbish all the way back in 1993. I wonder what Albarn, Coxon, Rowntree and James make of things now? Have they made their peace with modern life? They’ve had decades to adjust. Maybe they have. I begin to silently rank Blur albums in my head.
Outside, a cleaner scrubs the footpath with a chemical concoction of chlorine and bleach, creating an aroma reminiscent of a municipal pool. I need to start swimming again, I think. These thoughts continue to circle around in my mind like a washing machine. They don’t go anywhere in particular; they meander, circle back, and loop midair like a lob caught by the wind. The same is true of the stills in the videos above. Photographic sketches stitched together as video; they don’t contain a narrative. They simply echo one another. Something seen, then seen again. Sabalenka, too, operates on a level of repetition. Hers is iterative. Her game is a sequence of functions within an animation loop: hit, position, anticipate; each still in the cycle tweaked with algorithmic precision. Right on cue, she breaks Zheng’s serve, and even though the rallies remain competitive, and Zheng gives nothing over easily, I never doubt Sabalenka will relinquish this advantage. She doesn’t and wins in straight sets. A flattering scoreline that doesn’t do Zheng justice. After the match, the broadcast immediately segues into advertisements. The problem with the flatscreen at the bar, I think, is that it makes everything look too crisp. Too clear. To the point that the reality it presents starts to feel artificial. The Luddite in me misses the CRT’s fuzziness and the way it would invite static if the antenna shifted in the wind.