TENNIS: Mission Accomplished
Doug Keen, the charismatic American who doubles as Calvary Chapel minister in Silverhill and Amherst club tennis coach, will be returning to his native country next month after 21 years in Britain, the last 15 spent in Hastings.
PICTURE: Dave Young
He and his wife Lisa have brought up four daughters in England, and he says he will sorely miss their mix of family, pastoral and sporting life on the English south coast. But Lisa’s father needs family care at his home in Southern California, three of the daughters are already living there, and Doug says he believes he has been summoned back by God to start the next stage of his life.
He first came to Europe in his early 20s, playing satellite tournaments in France and Germany. He would spend the winters coaching in New Mexico to save enough money to play competitively over the summer – he would have liked to compete full-time on the pro circuit, but wasn’t quite good enough to make a living from it all year round. “I was like a League One footballer, not quite Premiership class,” he says.
Tennis in England
At county level in England, though, even in his 30s he was a fierce competitor, playing for the Yorkshire team that won the county championship at Devonshire Park, Eastbourne in 2003. Alongside him was Jonny Marray, later Wimbledon men’s doubles champion. After moving to Hastings he became a regular player for the Sussex senior team (over 35s); and at 50, prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, he was still competing – and winning – for Amherst in both singles and doubles matches at the highest level of the Sussex club team league.
The physical environment makes for notably different tennis conditions between the south-west states of the USA and Britain, Doug says. The high altitude of New Mexico and its scorching summer sun combine to produce very fast courts – “you have to be very quick, you string the racket tight, and the points don’t last long.” Southern California, where he will revert (at least in the short term) to full-time coaching, won’t be so high, but the temperatures will be the same or hotter.
He says he’ll miss the grass courts here – there aren’t any in Hastings, but he gets to play from time to time in Eastbourne. He also thinks that the artificial clay courts recently installed in Amherst are good surfaces for teaching the game in England. “They play well in the wet, holding a lot of water. They are slow, but young players can develop good footwork and smooth strokes.”
PICTURE: Dave Young
As for the culture of British tennis, he approves the “wonderful” attitudes of sports-manship and fair play. But he also detects a change over the last 15 years or so in the mindset of competitors, from accepting, as he puts it, the role of the ‘good loser’ to “we can win this thing” – a bit more American, perhaps. Andy Murray’s first win at Wimbledon in 2013 was a critical moment, he thinks.
For a full account of Doug Keen’s previous tennis career, conversion to Christianity and pathway to Christian ministry through New Mexico, Harrogate, York, and Hastings, see HIP 103 in June 2018: Tennis: keen on pleasing god.
His final appearance as tennis competitor in England is scheduled at Amherst next Saturday 23rd May, when he will be representing the home club in both singles and doubles matches in an Aegon Team Tennis fixture against Seaford starting at 2pm. His coaching role will continue until early June.
Amherst Pays Tribute
Sandra Goodsell, player:
Doug is a perfect coach, always professional with realistic expectations. His lessons are the highlight of my week. He brings together an eclectic group of people for an hour of pure enjoyment and escapism. The lessons are well structured and exhausting, with a different weekly focus and clear demonstrations. We all try the instructions with varying degrees of success, and always revert to our old bad habits for the competitive games at the end. Then we come off the court buzzing and determined to try out our newly learnt skills to improve our games. There is always fun and laughter on the court, which is sorely missing from our lives at the moment.
Helen Almond, fellow coach:
I will miss Doug. We didn’t always see eye to eye over holy matters, but we both turned the other cheek. After our first-ever religious discussion, I said that I hoped my views wouldn’t affect our working relationship, and he replied, “Helen, I knew you were a sinner the first time I saw you.” So funny – loved it. He never got me to the church, but we shared a lot of good laughs and also some magic moments when we found common ground.
Tennis Doug is a total Pro – what a player, what a coach, and always on court with a light-up smile. He inspired so many people to take up tennis. Why is he going to America? Well, to help people, which is what he does. He can’t help it.
Pat Holmes, player:
There is a very special ethos around Doug, personal and professional. Returning home after my first coaching session with him, my daughter Sophie asked “How was it?” I replied: “Excellent coaching, but there was something quite extraordinary about Doug – a brightness shines out of his face.” Sophie smiled and nicknamed him ‘Saint Doug of Amherst’, and that is how he is affectionately known in our house.
Brian Hallam, player:
Of Doug’s many skills on the court, the one I’ll remember most readily is his ability to nonchalantly pluck a fast-moving wayward ball out of the air with the tip of his racket. Not bouncing it off the strings, onto the floor and eventually into his pocket, like the rest of us. No, this is one movement, which you feel he could do with his eyes closed. His arm reaches upwards and comes down with the ball seemingly glued to the strings, before it ends up in his left hand with the other three he’s already holding; all the time passing helpful comments on the error in your stroke – the only proof his eyes were open. The whole sequence epitomises his effortless grace both on and off the court.
Peter Farthing, senior coach:
Doug has been a great addition to the coaching team, bringing a diversity of approach and opinion which, I believe, truly enriched the club. I was always amused by the curious incongruity of a priest behaving with such ferocity in the heat of battle. Doug showed no mercy when playing tennis for the Amherst men’s team – a sort of a Friar Tuck in the band of merry coaches (although it couldn’t be said that he was in the slightest bit rotund).
I shall miss his balls! Not his courage at fearlessly spreading the good word – his actual tennis balls. He marked them with a Christian cross, which I’ve never seen on a tennis court before. I was always amused that, being spherical, the cross was upside down half the time. Was he trying to tell us something? Did this turn tennis into a profound symbol of the eternal fight between good and evil? Whichever way you look at it, Doug always managed to spin it more often towards God.
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