My Tribute To Tom Ferguson - The Elastic Band Kid

If you type tennis jokes into Google it finds nothing.

If you type golf jokes it finds thousands, because in tennis the humour is what we the tennis player produce in our silly matches on our Planet tennis.

Tom Ferguson was apart from a very good player, a very witty person with a very dry sense of humour, which in some cases ruffled feathers, but in general by most, it was taken in the spirit it deserved.

I played with the guy, against the guy and a couple of times tried to coach the guy, and that was difficult because he was not the sort to be told anything!!!

But why the elastic band kid??

Tom would not play with the conventional dampner on his racket- he had an elastic band - in fact he had four..illegally placed above the bottom string. When pointing this out he told me that Andy Roddick and Andre Agassi also used elastic bands, which he proved to be correct, they did BUT only one and under the bottom string.

This joke went on for months and any time I played against him I would tell him that any winning shot was illegal because of the band, and he would always come out with the same answer that he owned the Cumbria Elastic Band Company and had to promote the product - so where on earth on Google would you find a story like that.

Below are a few photos of Tom.

The perfect forehand.

A photo I made up showing him that he did have a few ladies who thought he was something special.

At times a wizard on the court..and others off of it! To him we were all “duck eggs” his words he used for anyone that was not quite up to his talent on the court - he was probably right and if there is a tennis court where Tom finally goes then for sure anyone there will also be a duck egg.

Thanks for the memories Tom - a pleasure to have known and played with you.

John The Coach