Yosef Gershon is integrating his spiritual goals with his tennis ambitions

Photos: Naftoli Goldgrab

THWACK!

THWACK!

Mishpacha’s photographer and I are watching a tennis practice in the Sportime pavilion on Randall’s Island, a narrow strip of land between Manhattan and Queens devoted largely to sports facilities and the New York Fire Department training academy. The huge, vinyl-draped shell is lit with fluorescent lights strung high, although a few shafts of sunlight sneak in through windows near the ceiling. Under this dome are three tennis courts, all of them occupied by players whacking balls back and forth.

Francesco, the assistant director of Sportime and part-time tennis coach, is on the court with 35-year-old Yosef Yitzchak Gershon. Tzitzis swing beneath Yosef’s teal-green T-shirt as he hits the ball back and forth. Tall and lanky, Yosef seems to size up the ball as it approaches, makes a judicious decision, then strikes it with practiced ease over the net into his opponent’s side of the court. He moves in a leisurely dance, sailing right and left to volley each ball. It’s only when the photographer asks for a jumping pose that the professional player obliges by springing into the air to hit the ball, smashing it back with an extra burst of power.

After 20 minutes, they take a break, and I ask Yosef what he’s working on in this practice.

“My technique — the serving, the returns,” he explains. “I try to get into the rhythm — the ‘zone’ — so that I’m feeling in control of the ball.”

When I ask Francesco if he can tell Yosef has played professionally, he nods. “You can hear it in the way the ball hits the racket,” he says. “It makes that strong, clean pop that tells you it was hit in the center of the racket at the right angle.”

Francesco then takes out his phone to google Yosef’s ATP — Association of Tennis Professionals — stats and see what his standing is. Yosef isn’t in the top 100 yet, but that’s the goal. His dream is to win the US Open.

Yosef has a long, complex relationship with this competitive and very demanding sport. Through the twists and turns of his life, it served alternately as a source of structure and discipline, a reason for resentment, and then a form of solace and fulfillment. As he traveled a spiritual journey and found new goals and ambitions, it wasn’t immediately clear that his talent for tennis would remain in the picture. But with the help of strong mentors and a solid bond with his Judaism, Yosef has managed to integrate his spiritual goals with his tennis ambitions. He’s gone through a lot, but is facing his future with confidence, a prayer on his lips and racket firmly in hand.