Taking Weekend Tennis Seriously

• A tennis class of adult beginners is learning how to hit forehands on the adjacent court. Every other word out of the teaching pro is “Excellent!”, “Good!”, or “That was beautiful!” I’m having to duck as the class’s balls come raining down on my side of the fence. If the teaching pro’s goal was to drum up more business for herself, then she’s doing a stupendous job because if she thinks that was beautiful, then I can’t wait to hear what she has to say about my shots. Mine actually go over the net now. On the same court even. I would definitely pay to have a teaching pro tell me how awesome my strokes are for once.

• I believe that life goes in cycles. Peaks and valleys. I’m currently going through a valley. I’ve forgotten how to hit backhand volleys. I thought I had it a month ago, but then my body remembered itself and when the ball glides slowly by me on my backhand side when I’m at the net, all I can do is stare at it in befuddled amazement. How do people hit the ball from this side?!

• I emailed my teaching pro about this so that backhand volleys would be the primary topic at our next lesson. You know, in case he had been thinking of working on the triple Lutz triple toe loop instead. Less than 24 hours later, I emailed him to let him know I had also forgotten how to hit backhand groundstrokes and the kick serve. We’re definitely not working on the toe loop this week.

• This is all excellent timing because I have a couple of major doubles events coming up. I’ve got a non-USTA team tennis league tournament tomorrow (it’s round robin so I’ll be facing the mother I haven’t beaten, yet. I sure hope third time’s indeed the charm). For this weekend, my USTA Tri-Level team got wild carded into Sectionals…after the team ahead of us couldn’t play. I bet they couldn’t play because they didn’t have enough players that could take off all of Friday and the rest of the weekend for a tournament that’s in a town nearly four hours away.  As it is, all of my teammates are forbidden from being injured. The whole concept of adult competitive recreational sports is stupid and flawed, especially for women. This topic will be its own full post someday.

• In preparation for said tournaments, I’m gulping down Potassium pills, Vitamin D pills, coconut water, and chia seeds (in the form of a tasty oatmeal concoction made by an awesome teammate because I am too impatient to cook or buy ingredients) so that I don’t cramp up. I cramped up twice last year during real matches (thank goodness that in both instances, my partners were able to carry us to victory while I laid in the fetal position in the corner of the court) and couldn’t play the following match/week. Ridiculous. My teams’ futures might have been different if I had been able to play…you know, because sometimes you can steal a win from your opponents after they’ve warmed-up with you and think the match will be an easy affair.

• I believe I cramp up not because of some dehydration/lack of nutrients issue but because of mental stress. I generally get stressed before matches that actually matter. But that logic doesn’t compute to people – because they don’t see the world the way I do (shockingly) and can’t understand why I would be stressed in the first place – so I figured I might as well swig down a whole lot of nutrients to appease them. Let’s tackle the possible causes that are easiest to rectify first.
  

  Photo: Thanks to: SimonDoggett in Flickr ©Creative Commons

• According to the chia seed package that my awesome teammate also included in the My Little Pony lunch box she handed me (she thought I might make my own oatmeal if only I had the chia seeds. She’s cute), I can apparently put the seeds in juice and devour them that way. I hope it goes well with hot chocolate, too. I’ll let you know in fifteen minutes, which is for how long I’m supposed to let the chia seeds tread water.

• A tennis friend has set up a match between me and an assigned partner against her and her usual partner. I have always beaten her and her usual partner, no matter who I play with. Well, except for this one time. But for the sake of this bullet point, let’s pretend I have always beaten her and her usual partner. My newest partner is better than any partner I’ve played with against the two of them. My tennis friend ends the message with “It’s going to be a great match.” This is a phrase (or variations of) I’ve used quite a bit as well when I’ve set up doubles matches. I see now that I was really saying this will be a great match for me.

• I’ve dropped the doubles soul-mate running joke several posts ago because I’ve found other ones to tickle my mind with. And because I would like to get my own affairs in order before I settle down. I’m sure I’ll start the theme back up. But here’s a leftover nugget from that series that I haven’t been able to use elsewhere:
  

  What would I even do if I met my doubles soul-mate? How do you tell someone, “You are clearly my doubles soul-mate. Let’s play doubles almost exclusively together all the time!”

  She would think I was crazy. Well, if she was really my doubles soul-mate, she would accept me for who I am. A doubles partner who can’t volley.

• Oh, did I tell you, yet? I’m hosting The Newlywed Game: Tennis Doubles Partners Edition at one of my tennis team’s End of the Season Party! Questions have already been written. No, none of them contain the phrase “make whoopee.” If you would like me to host at one of your tennis teams’ shindigs, you can reach me at…

• Man, this hot chocolate with chia seeds drink is delicious!

~ Christy Vutam