Okay, so I’ve been trying to get into crossword puzzles lately, and I stumbled upon this “modern tennis” theme. I’m not a huge tennis buff, but I figured, why not? I’m always up for a new challenge.
I started by, you know, just Googling “modern tennis crossword” to see what would pop up. I found a few free ones online, nothing fancy. I picked one that looked kind of medium-difficulty – didn’t want to scare myself off right away.
I printed it out. Yeah, I’m old school like that. I like to have the paper in front of me so I can scribble all over it. Plus, it feels more satisfying to fill in the boxes with a pen.
Then, I grabbed a pen and just… dove in. I started with the clues that seemed easiest, like ones with short answers or ones where I had a hunch about the answer.
- Some of them were pretty straightforward tennis terms. Like, I figured out “ACE” pretty quickly (that’s a serve that the other player can’t return, right?).
- Others were trickier, more like wordplay related to tennis. I had to think a bit harder about those. I remember one clue was something like “Grand Slam location, briefly” and the answer was “AUS” (for Australia, I guess!).
The Struggle Was Real (Sometimes)
There were definitely a few clues that stumped me. I spent a good chunk of time staring at some of the longer clues, trying to piece together the letters. I even resorted to looking up a couple of tennis terms online (don’t tell anyone!).
But, slowly but surely, I started to fill in more and more of the grid. It’s actually kind of addictive! You get that little rush of satisfaction every time you figure out a clue. And it’s cool to see how the words all intersect and connect.
Finally, after maybe an hour or so, I managed to finish the whole thing! It wasn’t perfect – I think I had one or two wrong answers in the end – but I was pretty proud of myself for sticking with it. It was a fun little mental workout, and I definitely learned a few new things about tennis along the way.
Maybe I’ll be a regular player now. We will see the crossword in next week.
