I am writing this article literally about "Killer Tennis" and how poor animals or creatures are being accidentally killed or struck down in the game of tennis. I am not sure if you have experienced this before, but the tennis court flood lights generally attract a large amount of flying insects in the evenings or at night The flying insects in turn attract a number of "Insectivorous Bats" (Insect Eating Bats). I like it when the bats come, as they usually either eat all the flying insects or generally scare them away. There are always these group of bats 2 or 3 of them flying around at night. I believe these are usually the same ones as they frequent the same haunts (the tennis courts at Regentville) on most nights getting rid of all those irritating flying insects some which bite. These bats are always a welcome sight to me as i hate those crawling stinging insects.

I also noticed that when you hit a high topspin or do a lob, the bats are attracted to the tennis balls by dive bombing at them and pulling up just in time. I guess they might have realized using the ultra high echo location that it might have not been an insect after all. I initially thought this was just coincidental but later on i did a couple of experiments (while not having a match) i just hit a few lobs in the air when these insect eating bats are flying around and i noticed them diving towards the falling tennis ball. I later realised that these bats might have assumed that the ball was a large flying insect and were naturally attracted to it using their unique echo location. But in most cases they will come out of the dive just in time.

I have heard a couple of instances from some of the Regentville tennis players that they have witness a bat being struck by a tennis racquet. Jimmy said he had experienced it once when somebody hit a bat and Sandra had personally hit a bat before. In both cases the poor bats died instantly from being accidentally struck with the tennis racquet, and in both cases they were struck during the tennis serve. Most of the bats landed in the net without any struggle. I think they died instantly from the great force of the racquet. From my lobbing experiments i was able to gather why this was happening. During a serve the ball is tossed high in the air, the bat with its echo location assumes that the ball is a large insect (remember bats are blind) and they cannot see whats happening. The bats swoop down for the kill to grab the "insect" in this case the tennis ball and while in that process gets caught in the line of fire, in this case the tennis service motion being smashed by a racquet travelling and with a velocity of a hundred of kilometers per second. These bats rarely will have a chance.

Today i witnessed this rare feat first hand. From what i observed, i guess my theory of how bats are being killed this way is correct after all. I watched the entire sequence of events that led the bat being killed. Tommy was the unfortunate one who strucked the bat down. Personally I think striking a bat in flight while serving is something like a million to one but he managed to do it all it a freakish accident.

I generally wanted to put this question to any of the tennis players or non tennis players if they had encountered a similar situation such as this before. I tried researching the internet but this has never been documented or mentioned. But if i have been narrated two experiences and was personally there to witness one such instance. I am sure this has frequently happened for players who play in the evenings or during the night especially with tennis courts that have flood lights installed. I managed to find this article off the web which mentioned accidentally killing a bat during serving so i guess my theory is enhanced even more here.

What i would also like to know is that how can we avoid this? i heard a bat has a life span of 15 to 20 years depending on their species and if that bat that was killed had young. Most likely they will perish as well. I know something like this happens rarely, but i have been told by the Regenville players that this has been encountered by them before, and i was there to narrate the third time this happened. I would would not like to experience it again. Seeing a poor life being taken senselessly like that is not really worth it. Honestly my game was affected after that, i didn't feel like playing anymore and while some people might just laugh it off, i feel really bad for that friendly bat who has been helping us clear away all those irritating insects from the tennis courts while we play. All your comments here are welcome.

Hitting birds seems to be more common but still a one in a million probability, killing a bat is even more rare. Michael Llodra seems to have done it with his powerful forehand return killing a bird instantly during the 2002 Australian Open. Here's the footage of Michael Llodra's forehand killing the bird instantly.

Somebody made a complaint that the video i posted on youtube.com had infringed the copywrite of Tennis Australia. Not sure how i infringed any copywrites as i make no references that the video footage was mine at the end of the video there is a huge ESPN logo there. If Tennis Australia didn't like the free publicity so be it... For those who still want to view the video please download it directly from this link (Llodra Kills Bird - Download Video). If Tennis Australia has any issues with this, please take it up directly with ESPN.