Taking Weekend Tennis Seriously

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.

I don’t care that I’m double faulting. I don’t care that I’m losing all my practice matches to any warm body in a skirt. I care only about getting better. I need all the service repetition I can get as I try to remember to do all these foreign steps. Double faulting – getting worse – is just part of the process. It’s like driving. When you start out, you have no idea what you’re doing. There are so many aspects to it that you don’t know where to begin. You’re so busy concentrating on just going the speed limit that you forget to stay in your lane. Then one day as you’re skittishly varooming down the highway surrounded by cars going 70 miles an hour, it’ll just suddenly click. And driving will seem like second nature.

Hitting an effective kick serve is just like that. I’m losing the battle, but I will win the war!

I’m not sure if losing the battle includes having this sharp pain in my neck because I can’t stop myself from straining unnaturally as I try to hit the ball that I’m supposed to toss so far out to my left…what do you mean you don’t think I’m doing the kick serve correctly?

I really am fine with all the double faulting and all the losing. Unfortunately, I’m not double faulting and losing in a vacuum.

I played a practice doubles match against one of my team captains the other day. In my first service game, I double faulted three of the five points (I’m attempting my kick serve for both my first and second serves). Two balls hit my side of the court first before bouncing nowhere. Three struck my racquet frame and didn’t land till they were safely beyond my opponents’ baseline. And the other one I just totally blacked out on. At one point, my captain looked at her partner and said, “What the heck is that?”

That’s a direct quote. I am not seeing the light of playing time this season.

The problem with trying to improve when you are a weekend warrior tennis player is that the only way to get better is to practice. If we could practice several hours each day with drills and lessons and coaches yelling at us, that would be one thing. But as adults, the bulk of our practice opportunities come in the form of practice matches. Doubles practice matches to be exact.

That’s a whole lot of witnesses watching you suck.

My unfortunate, unsuspecting doubles partners – if they hadn’t already thought this – now  think I am a terrible player. Double faulting is one of the worst offenses you can commit, and now I’m doing it like I’m being paid to. My opponents…well, I’m sure they love the winning part. But there’s no way they would ever want to play with me. My captain certainly will not be playing me in her lineups.

I don’t know what I’m going to do when the season starts and I’m playing real matches. Oh, wait. That’s right. I won’t be. I need to edit my How To Increase Your Playing Time posts to include this tip: don’t play with your captain when you’re in the midst of tweaking your game.

Face palm.

~ Christy Vutam