I Learned to Play Tennis After 40. It Completely Changed My Life (Exclusive)
I Learned to Play Tennis After 40. It Completely Changed My Life (Exclusive)
Staff Author, Nicola HarrisonSat, April 25, 2026 at 1:00 PM UTC
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Nicola Harrison and her tennis team dressing up as showgirls to celebrate her book 'The Show Girl'Credit: Nicola Harrison
The first time I picked up a racket was under mild duress. It was October 2020 and I had just moved from Manhattan, N.Y. to Manhattan Beach, Calif. We were deep in the COVID-19 pandemic and I knew it would be a long time before I’d be around people long enough, or comfortably enough, to start making friends.
One afternoon, while playing with my then 2-year-old at the beach, I struck up a conversation with a few moms who, like me, had also recently relocated from New York. We stood at a safe 6 feet apart, making small talk and sharing survival tips when one of them said, casually, “We’re going to take tennis lessons. It’s outside, we’ll be spread out. Do you want to join?”
I did not want to join. I’m not, and have never been, a sporty person. Growing up in a small town in England, sports were never my thing. I was a dancer, ballet mostly. That felt different: it was a graceful, creative, non-competitive hobby.
When I moved to the U.S. as a teenager and saw that kids my age had been playing soccer, volleyball and softball since they were barely out of diapers, I knew immediately that I was not going to try and enter this race late. Instead, I joined the cheerleading squad, which was entertaining because I had no idea how American football actually worked. Over the years I went through dutiful spurts of gym attendance, but sports, I told myself, were simply not my thing.
Nicola's tennis teamCredit: Nicola Harrison
And yet, while I wasn’t interested in tennis, I was interested in making new friends in my new town. So reluctantly I agreed. Our first lesson was with a man named Sam, who pulled up to the local rec center in a very old and well-used RV and insisted, unprompted, that he didn’t live in it. I wasn’t convinced. Instead of proper metal baskets to hold tennis balls, Sam unloaded several lidless coolers from the RV, their insulation poking out through the cracks in the sides, all filled with balls. My three friends and I spread out across the baseline while Sam set up a ball machine and shouted instructions from the sidelines. I had absolutely no idea what he was saying but I swung at those balls anyway. After a few lessons, miraculously, some of them went over the net.
Sam was adamant that the only stroke we needed to master was the backhanded slice, which, now that I know better, is arguably one of the most advanced strokes in tennis. We did not master it and eventually we found our way to another instructor at the local tennis club who believed in teaching the basics — forehand, backhand, volley. After a few months, something incredible happened: we started to improve.
The author and one of her tennis teammatesCredit: Nicola Harrison
I began looking forward to our lessons. In fact, I couldn’t believe a whole week was going to go by without playing. Hungry for more, I found an evening clinic for men and women and I convinced my husband to come along. It turns out that, despite not playing since high school, he’s very good. Tuesday nights became our date night. We’d play, then, sweaty and content, we’d grab dinner and I’d grill him on what I could do to improve.
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The following year, shockingly, I was asked to join a tennis team. Admittedly it was the lowest division and about half of the women were in their seventies. They were frank about why they wanted me — they needed some young blood who could run down balls, and whose knees and hips were not yet giving up on them. What they lacked in speed, they more than made up for in experience. These women had been playing for decades and they could place the ball perfectly. I chased everything down like a lunatic, breathless and determined, while they calmly demolished their opponents with strategy and precision. It was humbling and thrilling all at once.
I fell in love with the team aspect of tennis: the cheering, the encouragement, the camaraderie of women who showed up week after week simply because they loved the game. And then, about a year ago, I did something that would have been unimaginable to my former self: I started my own team. Somehow, I am now the captain of a tennis team of 30 women, most of us with kids who go to the same schools. I make lineups and organize workouts and social matches and worry about rain forecasts as if it’s my actual job. But more than that, I’ve made the most incredible friends.
We have an ER doctor, an interior designer, a speech therapist, a pharmaceutical rep, a financial powerhouse, a real estate agent, a nurse, a TV anchor, a PTA president, an accountant, a dermatologist, oh and me, an author. It’s such a wild and eclectic group, and we’ve created something that’s just for us — an escape for an hour or two when we can forget about deadlines and patients and closing the deal.
Nicola (right) in her official team captain capacityCredit: Nicola Harrison
I love what I do for a living. Coming up with fictional stories set in real places, often steeped in historical detail, is my absolute dream job. But for a while, especially when both my kids were very young, if someone asked me about my hobbies, outside of writing, I felt stumped. Snowboarding, I’d say, but that was a once-a-year activity at best. Yoga? Sporadically, and more out of mental necessity than actual enthusiasm.
I came to tennis late, awkward and for reasons that had very little to do with the sport itself. And yet, against all logic, it has become a huge part of my life. It’s given me newfound confidence, a passion I didn’t realize I was missing, and a community that has changed my daily life. It taught me that it’s never too late to be new at something, and that sometimes the best things start not with ambition but with reluctance, and a simple, if hesitant, yes.
'The Island Club'Credit: Nicola Harrison
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Nicola Harrison's new book, The Island Club, hits shelves on April 28 and is available now for preorder, wherever books are sold.
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Source: “AOL Sports”
