Taking Weekend Tennis Seriously

I have a person whom I cannot beat.  I have never beaten her.  Singles, doubles, Monopoly – I just cannot beat her.  Okay, not Monopoly.  I have never played her in Monopoly.  I probably couldn’t beat her though.  I’d choke away all my money and she’d get every real estate property I owned just like she gets all my balls back.  See what I did there?

This is a Roadrunner. Get it?! Get it?!

When I play her in doubles, I keep switching out partners, hoping that this time, this person will be the extra sauce I need to get over the hump.  I think I screwed up a couple of idioms there.  Oh, well.  If I do it in writing, can you imagine how much I butcher the English language and phrases in real life?  Oh, yeah, it’s hilarious.

Clearly, it ain’t my partners.  It’s me.  I just have to accept I’m not good enough.  I think I pinpointed my biggest problem tonight.  I don’t put away my volleys.  I’ve come  a long way in my doubles game since about 2 years ago.  I can actually hit volleys now – even backhand volleys!  Thank you.  Thank you.  I’m not as scared of the ball coming right at me anymore.  But I concentrate so hard on just hitting the ball (over the net and into the court, thank you very much), I don’t think to do much with the volley.  It’s either not embedded in my reflexes, yet, or I haven’t truly overcome the net game to where I have enough time to think about how I can hit the ball.  I should either be positioning the return in such a way that the other team (generally, the other net person) can’t get to it or I should be putting much more zing into the ball (sticking it) so the other team can’t react fast enough to get it back.  Or both.  Really, I should be doing both.  But, that seems like something I won’t be achieving till next year.

Generally what happens is that I aim the ball at the net person and generally, the net person reaches out and hits the ball back.  They’re not able to hit the ball for a winner, of course, but in doubles, you need to win the point as soon as possible.  Doubles is won at the net and when I don’t put my volleys away, the point keeps going and who knows when I’ll get that chance again…or, I do get that chance again, and the cycle continues and eventually, we lose the point because the momentum swings over to their side with each difficult ball they’re able to get back.  I just know my partner is thinking, “WTF.  I labor so hard; I set you up perfectly, and this is how you repay me?!  PUT THE F-ING BALL AWAY.”

Sigh.  Believe me, partner, I feel exactly the same way.

And that’s the most frustrating thing about playing this particular person.  She always gets the ball back.  Her reaction time and reflexes and retrieving skills and freaking reach are ridiculous.  I think she’s just a flat-out awesome player.  She doesn’t give up, and she has weapons to match.  You think you’ve won the point, but then you’re watching in shock when the winner you smugly smashed comes rifling back, and the point just goes downhill from there.  And not only does she get everything back at the baseline, but then once she’s on the offensive and storms the net, you’re toast.  That’s just in singles.  Add in a partner who has similar deftness at the net, and I’m in trouble.

I’m close though.  I can feel myself inching closer to winning our showdowns.  I’m losing 6-4 instead of 6-3 these days!  Ten years from now when the volley no longer feels like the physical equivalent of me speaking Spanish, watch out, person I cannot beat!  You won’t be so fast then…because you’ll be 10 years older!!  HAH.

If anyone’s reading this, I’d love to hear about people that have given you trouble and how you overcame and beat the person.  Or, maybe you still haven beaten this particular person.  And we can commiserate together!