Taking Weekend Tennis Seriously

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!

The best players on tennis teams don’t think this way. Ever. It simply doesn’t cross their minds that they should do anything else other than to show up for their matches. Line-up templates already come with their names listed. They’re playing every week until they decide they don’t want to for whatever reason – reasons they don’t think anything of either. Subconsciously, they know there’s no team without “me” so there’s no need to think of anyone but themselves and their conveniences.

But back to me. The following is a list of what to do when you’re not the best player but want to do everything possible to increase your chances of playing. Because getting better at tennis? Is hard.

Attend team functions:

I used to organize post-season get-togethers in order to get on my captain’s good graces, but I’ve since decided not hating life meant more to me than validating my existence.

Not having a sucker like me on your team means your captain usually is the one to plan these events. You need to go. As the party planner, she’s definitely aware of who didn’t come, and you do not want to stand out for that.

Go to the post-match lunch. Absolutely go to lunch. Very bad things happen if you don’t. Simply attending prevents those bad things. This is the most valuable tennis lesson I have ever learned.

Attend to your captain’s personal functions:

Your captain’s kid is selling Boy Scout knots? You buy a knot.

Cheer on your teammates:

There are two different levels to cheering on your teammates: The easy one is to simply stay after your match is over and watch your teammates finish theirs. Even the teams’ best players will do this on occasion.

The real brownie points, however, are when you go out of your way and come out to matches when you are not scheduled to play. Your captain might also be on the sidelines (captains fall into two distinct categories: those that play themselves and those that make themselves the emergency subs for matches) so you’ll get her all to yourself for at least an hour. Remember now: people love to hear themselves talk.

Communicate:

Your team captain didn’t write a whole spiel of an email only to be greeted by crickets. When she emails, you reply. Even if she has just sent out the line-up without your name on it (again), you need to wish everyone a good match complete with exclamation point(s). And then go to said match.

If you are in the lineup (!), reply that you saw the email and know to be at warm-ups at such-and-such time at such-and-such facility on such-and-such date. Your captain is super scared that a) her email didn’t go out because technology cannot be trusted, b) you didn’t see the email and won’t be at the match at all, or c) you got the warm-up time mixed up with the actual match time; you thought the away match was a home match; and you’re confusing the dates of all the tennis teams you play on. Urgh, she is so scared. This is reason #58 as to why I’ll never be a captain of a tennis team.

Of course, the fact that the best players on teams can get away with not being involved with, you know, the team means I’m probably doing all this in vain. But I’m not going to listen to you and your logic. Doing these things gives me hope that I might get to play. Otherwise, I’d just cry.