Taking Weekend Tennis Seriously

I was mentally fried for at least a week from the Tri-Level Tournament two weekends ago. It was the weirdest feeling. I couldn’t even look my racquet in its face is how tired I was of tennis.

Ruh-roh.

It took till this past Saturday before I started recovering. USTA Fall Play-offs were going on that same weekend, and I don’t think I would have been able to play and do well in another high-stressed atmosphere so soon had my team been in it. I guess I didn’t understand just what I was in for that fateful tournament weekend, which turned out to involve playing very big deal, high-level tennis matches back-to-back-to-back, and so I didn’t take the appropriate steps afterwards. Of course, I’m going to blame the system for not preparing me adequately enough for such an experience.

An aside: I only had two 4.5s on my Tri-Level team, and they had to play back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back. They won all their matches except the last one. They are amazing. But I’m going to persevere and continue on with my woe-is-me post, anyway.

This is the biggest reason why I find tournament style for USTA Play-offs confounding. Confounding, I say! All tennis leagues go by a once-a-week match format, including USTA’s regular season. Our reward for advancing from our flight is a sudden tournament setup that benefits the teams with big rosters whose players are either indestructible and/or considerate enough to not have a life. That’s a whole other blog post unto itself, but let me tell ya something: I’m having a tough time finding such robots to field my team with.

What’s more is that the regular season can be a poor indicator for players and, most importantly, captains when it comes time to play the big-stakes-winner-takes-all matches.

Sometimes it seems like such a crapshoot in terms of quality of opposing players for most city-spanning leagues. The powers that be probably envision a weekend tennis world in which everyone plays at the correct level and every match goes three sets. Unfortunately, human beings are playing this sport. You’ve got people consciously playing up. You’ve got people consciously playing down. You’ve got oblivious people playing on the teams their friends are on, and those friends are consciously causing those oblivious people to inadvertently be playing up or down.

Did you follow all that?

Whatever the case may be, you could face inferior opponents and win all your for-real matches during a year but still be inadequately prepared for the kind of opposition you’ll face in tennis tournaments, both regular and team tennis ones.

The hardest – and bestest – matches you play that season may very well be the practice ones you and your tennis friends put together yourselves…where the setting is ‘laxed and the discussion on changeovers involve all four players and include such topics as Major League Baseball’s offseason transactions (“Our new first baseman is fat”) and last night’s karaoke scene (“That little [angel] told me afterwards she had turned her mic off before we started singing!”).

Helpful.

Along comes the toughest team tennis tournament. As I explained two posts ago, the very best players all over the area have been recruited to play Tri-Level. It’s one of the coolest things about this tournament – there’s no such thing as stacking. It’s basically your best line-up versus their best line-up. It’s straight-up mano-a-mano bring it.

But that which makes the tourney so great is what may have made it so draining for me. I had to play out of my mind for the entirety of my three Tri-Level matches, and my partners and I still barely won two of them while I dropped the other one. My brain needed a week to recover from being that much on, from having to concentrate that hard with every fiber of my being.

I know! I feel sorry for me, too! #FirstWorldProblems

Now, of course, we’ve all had league matches that took three full sets topped off by a tiebreak. But even when we do have to really buckle down to pull a win out by the scruff of our chinny-chin-chins, it’s usually followed by lunch and fun with your teammates after and nearly 24 hours – if not a full week – of recovery time till the next for-real match.

Team tennis tournaments, which only come around not even a handful of times a year if we’re lucky, don’t afford players that luxury. It’s all tense all the time for 2 to 3 days straight. Did I mention I played tiebreaks in all of my Tri-Level matches? Because I can’t think of anything more relaxing for the mind and body and soul than team-advancing-deciding tiebreaks.

And that’s just the on-the-court stress. Add in the usual off-the-court headache of figuring out the line-up, praying that your players will be present several, several minutes before match time, and living and dying with every point of your players’ matches…

Draining, I say. Draining!

So after playing “out of my mind” in the two team tennis tournaments I’ve entered in this year, I’ve made the mistake of scheduling a match soon after that demanding weekend. In fact, I’ve actually looked forward to that next match because I’ve thought, “Well, golly-gee, if the player from the tournament is my new starting point of tennis ability, then that would be just dandy. I can play this game after all!”

In both instances, I’ve totally sucked the first match or five back. It’s like I’ve never picked up a racquet before when in fact, I played pretty darn well for a gazillion matches in a 48 hour span just 36 hours ago. What the heck happened to that player? Was she an aberration who was just playing way above her head due to all the adrenaline coursing through her body because of the heightened setting, or is this version of me – the one who doesn’t understand why the ball is moving at her so fast – the true indicator of my tennis skill level?

Sigh. Tennis. But, lesson learned: don’t play for a week after a tournament. And definitely, don’t play a match that matters for the first time back on a tennis court. Of course, now that it’s been nearly two weeks, I’m rip-roaring ready to go. Let’s play, y’all!! What? What do you mean it’s Thanksgiving Week so you can’t play because your kids are at home/you’re going out of town? No, it’s not too cold outside! Urgh, guuyyysss…