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?!

I wonder in a year or two when I’m the sadder but wiser girl if I’ll be asking players to be on my team six months before the season starts. Will I ever ask players while the current season hasn’t ended, yet?

Oh, by the way: if you do ask a player a year out, get it in writing and remind her periodically. People be forgetful. The better the player, the more out-of-it mentally she probably is. I’m cursed with an above average memory. That explains my game.

I’m already crazy. I know it. You know it. You love me for it. But I’m just player-crazy. I’m only on-the-court-in-my-head-crazy. I’m not captain-crazy. That’s a whole other level of craziness.

This is how a tennis friend of mine was recruited for her 4.0 USTA team: she was playing a singles match at the 3.5 level and smoking her opponent. She noticed a small, older woman crouching behind the playground watching her. When my tennis friend would look over to the playground, the woman kept ducking behind the giant tic-tac-toe board. Afterwards, one of her tennis buddies called and invited her to join this higher-level team because the captain had been so impressed with her game.

That small woman who crouched behind the playground is a master recruiter. Her teams – real USTA, not-USTA, Tri-Level USTA, 40 & Over USTA, hang-gliding, Combo USTA, book club, fall USTA, knitting – routinely make play-offs/take first place. Every league, every season, every year. It doesn’t matter who’s on her teams because it ain’t them that’s making it all happen. It’s her.

Yes, she really was in the playground area trying not to be seen. I can’t make these things up.

*Wistful sigh* USTA playoffs. Sectionals. Nationals. The big dance. The only reason for playing.

Do I want to keep my last ounce of sanity, or do I want to make play-offs?

Will this blog be a record of my descent into captain-crazy?

I’m not going down without a valiant fight, y’all. I’ve already said repeatedly that I will never captain a team. Right now, I’m trying to tell myself I don’t care about making “playoffs” or “meaningful matches”…or the head-pounding exhilaration of a close race in the standings…or looking forward to the upcoming match that will decide first place…or the testosterone-fueled feeling of knowing your teammates and you are the bad-A’s on the court.

Oh, boy.

The reason why we want to be better tennis players, y’all, is to be so good that people keep asking you to be on their teams (and then you join the team with the craziest captain). Now I’m wondering what’s tougher: the mental headache of captaining a team or the physical exertion of trying to get better.

Either way, it looks like I’m about to descend deeper into craziness. Somebody, please save me.

~ Christy Vutam