Taking Weekend Tennis Seriously

After spectacularly choking away a match and not taking it too well, I naturally looked to youtube for inspirational tennis videos that would pump me up for the next battle.  Because, you know, not watching/listening to the proper inspirational music video/song before competition is what causes me to lose.

Alas, youtube failed me.  I did, however, find a video titled “Inspirational Tennis Quotes,” which is simply that: 25 quotes about tennis from past champions without any sound or cool background imagery. It’s as boring as it sounds. I’m not even linking to it. I stopped at quote #5. Let’s take a look at it, shall we?

“There is nothing I wouldn’t do on court in order to win.” – Boris Becker (6-time Grand Slam Champion)

Now some of us take this to an extreme and call bad lines. I don’t mean calling balls out on really close calls on crucial points bad lines. I mean calling bad lines all the time every day while you’re taking a shower bad line calls. You are a terrible person, and if tennis had been invented in the 14^th century, Dante would have included a level of he– just for you in his Inferno. Remind me that I want to write a blog post about people who call bad lines, will you, please?

I’m sorry, what were we talking about? Oh yes. What stood out to me about the quote was that I attempted to do exactly that yesterday, and I didn’t realize I was living out Becker’s greatness. I’m pretty sure that’s what I was inadvertently doing.

Yesterday, I played doubles against a woman I had lost to before. When I played against her the first time, she was teamed up with her daughter who’s a few years older than me. The mother had a different partner the second time around, but I’ll always remember the first match because mother and daughter teams are cute and rare and cute. Also, that was the match I learned the words to “Twist and Shout” because we were losing after cruising through the first set, and I asked my partner to teach me a song because that is what I do when I’m losing. I either cannot talk to you, my partner, which will drive you crazy because you think I’m mad at you but I’m really just furious with myself (my philosophy on tennis is that if I was a better player, we wouldn’t be losing), or I’ll ask you to tell me a joke or sing me a song. It’s one or the other, people. No, I wouldn’t want to play with me, either.

Early on in yesterday’s match, my partner and I were cruising along niftily through the first set and a half (is anyone else noticing a pattern here?), and when life is going well, I am a hilarious person to play with and even against. Just ask me. Crushed it. So back when life was going well, I thought I should start calling the opponent I knew by her last name: “Here’s the ball, Mrs. ________!” You know, out of respect. And then that quickly shortened up to “Mrs. G.” You know, like “Mrs. C” from that iconic American apple pie TV show, Happy Days.

And if my respectful nature should rub her the wrong way and cause her to make unforced errors…well…huh.  Weird.

Now of course, I lost the match. Some might say it was karma. I would say it’s because I’m a mentally weak person and a poor tennis player who has to resort to not even good attempts at mind games. I sleep. I wake up. I lose at tennis. What else is new?

What mind games do you like to play with your opponents? Do they work? Or, what mind games have your opponents done to you? Did those work? I’ve heard players tell me about opponents who pretend to be injured, which throws people off because nobody wants to play someone on their deathbed. I know a woman who lulls her opponents into a false sense of security by losing the first few games – perhaps even the set – all the while chatting them up all nice and smile-y like during the change-overs and then beats them mercilessly before they even realize what’s going on. She claims that’s not an actual strategy and that she thinks her “slow start” is an issue she needs to figure out, but I know better. I totally know better.