The 2008 Bathurst Cup

a selective memoir by Ryan Carey

There comes a time in every man’s life when his country comes calling in need of his services, for Kris Motz and I that time was the first week of April to play in the Bathurst Cup in Paris.

For those who are unfamiliar with the Bathurst Cup, it is essentially the Court Tennis version of the Davis Cup. Every two years, England, Australia, France and the United States send teams to battle it out over six days.

On paper, we were obvious underdogs. Australia and England both had “plus” handicap players on their team and France enjoyed the home court advantage. Maybe it was due to the lack of oxygen at altitude, but over the course of the 6 ½ hour flight to Paris, Kris and I managed to convince ourselves that a team as seemingly overmatched as ours, was clearly a dangerous team and poised to cause problems for the opposition.

We arrived at the Jeu de Paume in the mid-afternoon. Although we were exhausted from the flight and it was physically visible that we took the red-eye, excitement started to take over as the reality that we were actually there and going to play the world’s top amateurs set in. As we walked into the club, the Australians were on court for their practice session and they were all business. Five minutes on one drill, five minutes on the next drill, a scheduled water break, etc. The English team took