Tennis

Tennis is a sport that is played all around the word. It is played by striking a ball with a racket over a net. There are four major championships in tennis just like with golf. Tennis players compete for these four major events called Grand Slams. My two favorite grand slam tournaments are Wimbledon and the Us Open. Wimbledon is held in London, England and it is played on a grass surface. The US Open is played on a fast hard court surface and it is held in Queens, New York.

People who are not fans of tennis don’t realize how grueling tennis is. For example, there is no offseason in tennis so players have to play all year around or at least for 10-11 months out of the year. Unlike other sports, tennis players earn money only when they win through prize money and sponsors. On the court, players have to deal with the outside elements such as extremely hot and humid weather or very windy conditions which may affect a player’s movement and technique. And since there is no time limit in tennis, a match can last for hours and can even continue on for days until the match is decided. It is very common for tennis players to play with an injury because as a single player, tennis players don’t have teammates that can substitute for them when they are injured.

After many years of being a fan, I was fortunate to attend the US Open. It was an exciting experience to watch my favorite tennis players compete live.

Additional Tennis Facts

Tennis is played in three different ways 

• (Men’s Singles or Women’s Singles) - one player versus another player 
• (Men’s Doubles or Women’s Doubles) - two players versus two other players 
• (Mixed Doubles) – a man and woman pair versus another man and woman pair

The Four Grand Slams

• Australian Open – played on a slow hard court
• French Open – played on clay
• Wimbledon – played on grass
• US Open – played on a fast hard court
  
  
  Highlights of Tennis Player Roger Federer

Vocabulary:
tennis (noun) - a game played with a ball, rackets, and a net
compete (verb) – try to win
Grand Slams (noun, plural) – the four major tennis tournaments
grueling (adjective) – hard, takes great effort
offseason (noun) – time off from the sport
outside elements (noun) -  the weather and temperature
extremely (adverb) – very
movement the act moving your body
technique (noun) - skill in doing a specific thing

Vocabulary Exercise: 

Directions: Write a sentence for each vocabulary word.  

1. tennis: _____________________________
2. compete:____________________________ 
3. Grand Slams:________________________ 
4. grueling:____________________________
5. offseason:___________________________
6. outside elements:_____________________
7. extremely:___________________________ 
8. movement:___________________________ 
9. technique:____________________________ 

Grammar Point: A prepositional phrase is a group of words that starts with a preposition and ends with the object of the preposition. 

Example: In the sentence  "The US Open is played on a fast hard court"....  from the passage above, the preposition is "on." It connects the object "court" to the rest of the sentence. The prepositional phrase is "on a fast hard court."

Exercise: Underline four prepositional phrases in the passage above. Then use those four prepositions to write four sentences. 

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                                    Preposition Song