Taking Weekend Tennis Seriously

Tennis is a game played with four people on the court.  That’s how it started.  The court is divided naturally into four quadrants.  Each person mans a quadrant.  The goal is to protect your quadrant from the evil fluffy neon green/yellow ball.  This game is known as doubles.

That’s how tennis was meant to be played.  Sometimes, however, two of the four people couldn’t make the predetermined and planned-out-in-advance tennis match at the last second.  Because they suck.  The other two responsible people thought, “Well, the heck with it.  It’s a nice day out.  Let’s just hit.”  So they hit.  They did the mini-tennis thing and chit-chatted about potty-training their babies and where they could buy cheap sports bras with pads and how their significant others were complaining about tennis taking up so much of their time and hahaha, silly boys.  You know, the usual.  Then they moved back to the baseline to rally.  At first, they only played on one half of the entire court because that’s what was ingrained in them.  Usually, there was another pair warming up right next to them so they’d been trained to only aim right across to each other.  But they discovered that they did not, in fact, get zapped when they dared to cross over to the other half.  Slowly but surely these two people used practically the entire court to hit to each other.  And sometimes?  Sometimes, they had to run to get to the ball.  Whoa, now.

Gradually, more and more people discovered this…this mutant form of tennis.  More and more crazy people were okay with running side to side and having extended points.  Instead of feeling like something was amiss with only their lonesome selves flopping around on one side of the net, these onesie players felt like the playing field opened up and they had more air to breathe.  Not having a partner hogging all the breathable air was good because of all the running they were having to do.

The pros took to this uno style of tennis immediately.  Follow the money.  Tennis viewers enjoyed the mano y mano competition.  The points were longer; there seemed to be more strategy and suspense.  Players couldn’t waste time gossiping with their partners about the other team’s hideous attire after every point.  Fans could identify with the one-player-being-an-island aspect and only his/her wits to keep afloat with.  Riveting!  Drama!  TENNIS.

At the weekend tennis level, follow the money again.  The tennis coordinators and tennis pro shops realized they would lose money if this mono tennis took over.  The more people playing, the more money to be had.  I don’t know what city-wide tennis leagues you have in your town, but in mine, USTA in the summer is sandwiched between two doubles-only leagues in the spring and fall.

The people running the business of tennis didn’t have to try too hard to continue pushing doubles onto the public.  First of all, people don’t like change.  It’s gross.  Secondly, many people play tennis in order to get fit.  Naturally, these people gravitate towards the type of tennis that requires minimal running and physical exertion.  Thirdly, what’s the point of tennis if you can’t talk to anyone?  You certainly can’t talk to your opponent who keeps glaring at you with dagger eyes.  You might as well not play!  Besides, those singles players almost never know how to volley.  Can’t even volley!  How can they call themselves tennis players?!

Notice how the USTA format in the summer (the only league that matters) is 2 lines of singles and 3 lines of doubles?  To honor the popularity of professional tennis, the powers that be threw singles players a bone and allowed them to be a part of the competition.  Seriously, they’re playing by themselves as it is – why do they get to be on a team-format?  By definition, they don’t even want to be on a team!  But as an inside joke amongst themselves, the doubles folks only included 2 lines of singles – so it looks like doubles if you squint really hard!  What a wicked sense of humor those doubles players have!

And that is why it’s difficult finding singles players for USTA.  That’s why singles players play practically every weekend (and faint from heat exhaustion – also much to doubles players’ amusement.  See!  See!  Told you singles was dangerous!).  That’s why captains will ask their players if they’ll play singles that weekend – because the unsuspecting players will straight up tell them no after they receive the line-up.  Nobody chooses to play singles.   When you see the poor people who drew the short ends of the stick, please give them a sympathetic pat on the back.  They didn’t ask for this.  They were guilted into it.