Sitting at the McDonald’s restaurant on Southwest Marine Drive early Tuesday morning, Tong Fook Wah describes the difference between tennis and badminton.
“Tennis is easier because you hit the ball and it comes back to you, it bounces,” explained Wah, sipping on a green tea. “With badminton you need to chase [the bird] all over.”
Wah said making the switch 16 years ago is why at age 90, his knees are still in good shape.
“I had tennis elbow the first year I played,” he said. “But by the next summer it was gone.”
Wah plays at the Langara Tennis Courts at West 56th Avenue and Ontario Street every day of the year weather permitting, including during the bitter cold Vancouver suffered the first week of February. But on this day, tennis was cancelled due to extremely icy conditions.
But black ice didn’t stop the 90-year-old from driving in from his Burnaby home where he moved three years ago with his wife to live with the couple’s youngest daughter.
Prior to the move, the family lived in the Sunset neighbourhood, where he played at Memorial Park before joining the Langara group.
Wearing a ski jacket bearing a logo from the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and a grey baseball cap, Wah belies his nine decades and in fact looks decades younger.
And while he also credits his longevity to the fact he doesn’t drink, gamble or smoke, Wah said it’s tennis that truly keeps him going.
“Seniors who play tennis get good exercise and fresh air,” said Wah.
Langara Tennis Group president Terry Kong said besides the fact Wah rises as early as 5:30 a.m. to head to the tennis courts in the summer he’s also in charge of cleaning them prior to the first games of the day.
“We bought him a battery-powered blower to clean the courts,” said Kong, who turned 76 in January.
Kong said the group is broken into two informal groups including seniors and the players he fondly calls the “senior seniors,” most of whom are in their 80s.
The club began more than 25 years ago as an informal group of players who used to play at the Langara College courts prior to their renovations in 1995.
Kong said that’s when the college started charging a fee so the group moved onto the public courts tucked into the southeast corner of the Langara Golf Course, which he says at the time were in deplorable shape.
Two of the courts were so badly ruined by tree roots that the park board deemed them too dangerous to play and took the nets down.
Kong said the other two courts weren’t much better, so in 2001 the group successfully petitioned the park board to replace them.
Those renovations took place in 2003, which is when the players decided to create a semi-formal group and collect a $10 membership fee annually to help pay for incidental maintenance of the courts.
The group purchased brooms, garbage cans and rakes to keep the courts clean and two regulation nets to replace ones supplied by the park board.
The next year the group added another $10 annual fee and now provides tennis balls between April and September. New members are always welcome.
Wah said Kong’s enthusiasm for the game is contagious. In turn, Kong adds Wah’s love for tennis is inspiring.
The group threw Wah a combination Chinese New Year/birthday party last week where he was presented with a cake decorated with tennis rackets and a red envelope filled with cash for good luck.
Kong said the group did have one other player who continued playing at age 90, but unfortunately the man passed away several years ago.
And that’s just one more reason for Wah to continue playing.
“I’m going to play for another four years,” said Wah. “I’m going to break his record.”
