Taking Weekend Tennis Seriously

I feel like a million things have happened since last I wrote that have rocked my personal tennis world, and at some point when my head has cleared, I hope to address the two major ones. But if I never do, which is more likely, here’s where my head is at with those things:

The Qualifying Tournament: If I weren’t me, I would concentrate on what was probably the best part of the QT, or what I like to call, the worst thing that happened to my 4.0 team: my teammates mercilessly razzing me for eating chilli cheese fries as my pre-game meal and blaming that for why I cramped up/lost in the deciding match that pretty much dashed the hopes and dreams of my team for the tournament. If I weren’t me, I would focus on how much I laughed and laughed during that team bonding experience and how much I enjoyed the team camaraderie while we were rallying and figuring out how to win all five lines of our last flight match in order to advance (which we didn’t do). Alas, it’s me so…

Early Season League Ratings: In my USTA section, mid-year ratings come out around this time. USTA ratings are a BIG deal in my town. It’s just…it’s just stupid how big a deal it is. Teams disband; relationships are severed; and people cry because of this one silly pdf file.

There are 3 main reactions when ratings come out: 1. “Darn right.” 2. “Crap.” 3. “EXCUSE ME? How did the powers that be not recognize my greatness??” Remind me that I want to break down these thoughts and all the different variations just in time for when the year-end ratings come out. This year’s year-end list in particular is going to be a lot of fun…

…because I got bumped up when mid-season ratings came out. I’m sure I’ll unleash my hot sports opinions on this sudden bit of news at some point, but that is not this post (here’s a tease for you: I didn’t go undefeated and I barely won several of my matches this season. They clearly were meeting a quota by bumping me up). This post is about what happened afterwards and how I’ve inadvertently found myself in the cross hairs of one of the grand wizards of my tennis community.

A wizard is just about any team tennis captain who’s worth a darn. A grand wizard is a team tennis captain who routinely constructs fantastical tennis teams and can manipulate the outcome of a play-off tournament from 230+ miles away because she is that powerful.

Yes, I am scared.

For unfathomable reasons, I find myself captaining a 4.5 USTA Fall Friday team. I’m just as perplexed at myself and my actions as anyone else. Why wouldn’t I simply, silently join a team at this unfamiliar level (especially when it’s clear that captaining is taking years off of my life)? Well, that’s the thing. See, one of the problems when you get bumped up is you generally don’t know anyone at this level. And you don’t want to go through all the hazing and the initiation process and the kissing up to people who are “better” than you because wow, they’ve been at this level longer than you have and they don’t know you so you must suck and the whole not playing thing so you panic and captain a team.

When you are trying to find your way as a wizard in this anarchy posing as just your friendly, innocent, everybody-should-play tennis league, you learn pretty quickly that if you’re serious about being a captain, you need to do as the grand wizards do and obtain blood oaths from players at least a year out saying they will play for you.

After being rejected by countless people because of such binding agreements, I finally wised up. Within an hour of the mid-year report coming out (which to be honest with you, is already 59 minutes too late), I was texting/emailing/Morse-coding every 4.5 player I knew. Amazingly enough, some of them said yes.

Except that they shouldn’t have. You see, when you play for a grand wizard, your soul is hers until you’re no longer useful to her. Being bumped up does not make you no longer useful to her. Those players should have known better. But in that one brief, spell-lifting second, they forgot their places in this tennis world and said yes to me.

Please help me. I’m in big trouble. And all I did was ask one here-goes-nothing question.

Last weekend after the weeklong dust had settled and the feeding frenzy had subsided, I had a run-in with the grand wizard whose usual merry band of players had agreed to play on my fall team. She saw me, walked over to me, sat down next to me (all the while, I’m looking around the tennis facility frantically for a police officer or a firefighter to save me), and asked me if I wanted to combine my 4.5 Fall Friday team with hers since we probably both had small teams. I declined saying I wanted to see how this season would go. She patted my leg and said, “I see how it’s going to be.”

Hold me.

I am a marked member of my tennis community, dear reader. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me – I’m telling my dog how much I love her before leaving the house now – but there will no doubt be repercussions. For one thing, those players won’t make the same mistake again. There is no question that behind the curtains, they have been straightened out and will be returning to the grand wizard after this little excursion to the slums.

Sigh.

As people keep telling me, a lot can happen between now and next spring. Even so, I’ve been thinking a lot about the construction of crazy-good tennis teams and how a Sectionals-bound team is formed. I’m working on a theory that there are two factors for why certain people are loyal to their teams no matter what: 1) They love their teammates who make tennis fun and keep them laughing. 2) They like how competitive their teams are.

I’ve got the competitiveness aspect in spades. So all I gotta do is be my charming, fun, and loveable self, and I shouldn’t have any problems fielding a team for next spring!!

Yeah. I’m screwed.

~ Christy Vutam

Post Addendum: I found out after I had written this post but before I had published it that I was set up. One of my Fall Friday players told the grand wizard of my fear of running into her that weekend and to go have a “talk” with me (to which the grand wizard asked, “Should I threaten her?”).

First of all, aw. That might be the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me. Secondly, phew. I’ve been wondering who I was going to put in at line 1 singles for my 4.5 team (NOT IT). Now I know!!

Am I still scared of this grand wizard after finding out I’d been pranked? Oh, heavens, yes. You don’t become a grand wizard with that sort of [insert your choice of adjective here. I was going to go with cutthroat or ruthless. Or, awesome] reputation for nothing, you know. It’s not like I make these things up or anything.

Besides, if I didn’t live in a world in which grand wizards existed, captain-crazy was a thing, and all the players were head cases, I certainly wouldn’t keep playing team tennis. 😉