Taking Weekend Tennis Seriously

I wish with all my heart that my superpower wasn’t making spreadsheets.

So I tried to recruit players to my USTA spring team yesterday. No, I’m not the captain. I’ve been rebuffed from more than half of them, and I’ll probably be receiving the rest of the bad news by the time this post is published.

The general reason for being unable to join my team is that they’re already on a team for the upcoming season. One player was asked three weeks ago. I met her four weeks ago. I have so much to learn.

Real USTA (spring USTA) starts in May. That is a little over three months away. Why didn’t anyone tell me open season started a while back?!

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My boss just asked me if I was still playing tennis. I wonder if he thinks I ask to come in late every Thursday because I need to sleep in after all the vigilante crime-fighting I do the night before. Wednesday’s my night. Batgirl and Wonder Woman have the other days. I’m not too sure why they need off Wednesdays specifically, but we don’t ask too many questions of each other’s personal lives. It’s an unspoken sort of thing.

I am currently double faulting at an alarming rate. I really, really am. Someday, I’ll have a kick serve as my trusty, reliable second serve that’ll always go in while giving my opponents fits when they try to return it. That day is not any time soon. Perhaps not this year.

Now would be the best time to play me if you needed a pick-me-up-super-easy win.

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Tennis coaches are horrible, wretched, twisted beings who are out to ruin our tennis games. Save your money; it’s all a scam. Stay away from them, people!

Ahem.

It’s been nearly two weeks since I sympathized with the plights of tennis teaching pros and having to deal with us and all. But two weeks ago, I had a second serve (you know, that very important stroke that starts nearly every tennis point…think about it…). And now I double fault all the time. I go to my teaching pro to get better, and he ruins my second serve and basically my entire ability to play competitively. Outstanding.

After being much maligned and criticized, what was a passable second serve doesn’t exist anymore. I can’t even hit the ball the way I used to. Now my second serves don’t go in, and I’m practically spotting my opponents all of my service games. I have better luck attempting my first serve again, which isn’t the worst idea in the world, actually. The worst idea would be your outfit.

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Something about me was cool. I can die happily now.

My weekend was made when a little girl told me I had cool shoes. Little girls have never told me I had cool shoes, especially when I was a little girl. Adulthood: still trying to impress little kids.

In the last post, we looked at ways you could try to garner more playing time even when you are not the best player on your team. Being involved with non-playing team activities/kissing up to your captain type stuff that you never see your team’s best player do.

Here are other ways you could try to be more top of mind when your captain sets down to lovingly handcraft the lineup at her desk in her lair with her scouting report of the week’s opponent typed up, her most recent satellite pictures of each opposing player printed, and the appropriate figurines pulled out from her collection of dolls that she had made of the whole league laid out in front of her.

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I am generally not the best player on my tennis team. Because I am rarely the best player on my team, my playing time is a fun weekly guessing game (“The upcoming opponents are near the bottom of the rankings. Maybe my captain will play me this week! Oh, no, what does it mean if she doesn’t play me?”). Limited physical and natural abilities being as they are, I’ve come to understand the importance of standing out in other ways and building up as much good credit with captains as possible. So I can’t volley because I can’t control the awkwardness of my body and its inability to move. But I sure as heck can respond to team emails!

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In the latest in my series of Titles/Positions I Could Never Hold, I’m adding Tennis Instructor to the list (and not just because I’m not a good enough tennis player to do it). I think it’s a pretty neat job, honestly. Getting to be outside. Getting to be active. Time probably goes by quicker for them than time does for me as I stare glassy eyed at my computer screen by hour three of the work day. Getting to help people.

What a noble thing that is: Helping people. Teaching people. Making people better. What a terrific concept.

And therein lies the rub. Teaching people is a terrific concept…until you add in the actual, you know, people to the mix.

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From espn.go.com. I would absolutely attribute the photographer if I knew that information…

This is Matthew Stafford. As a reader of this blog, you probably do not know who Matthew Stafford is. Matthew Stafford is the starting quarterback for the Detroit Lions, a National Football League team. Quarterback. Stereotypically, the head of the jocks. What I find fascinating about Matthew Stafford is that when his picture appears on my television screen (NFL telecasts show head shots of the starting lineup, #nowyaknow) as it has for the last four seasons, I can’t believe that that’s what he actually looks like. That does not look like a starting quarterback in the NFL. That looks like a frat boy. And if you told me he played football, I would assume he was a linesman. You know, those bigger guys who don’t ever get to touch the football. Those guys.

I bring up Matthew Stafford because I’m warning those of you who haven’t seen me in the last hibernating month or so that that’s how I look right now. I look like Matthew Stafford. My face is pudgy. I just wanted to brace everyone for this likeness so no one does a severe double take and injures themselves in the pro shop before we even get out onto the courts.

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