Taking Weekend Tennis Seriously

As I’m sure is the case in your area, my area has non-USTA, cities-spanning leagues with a flight-ladder system to pass the time in between USTA seasons. Finish last and your tennis team moves down a flight. Finish first or even second and your tennis team moves up a flight.

With one last week of matches to go in such a league, one of the tennis teams I play on will for sure-for sure be finishing first in its flight this season.

“HAHA, SUCKERS!”

Is what the rest of the flight is thinking.

You know what’s going to happen after we finish first? We will be moving up next season. To the highest flight in the league. Where there are former college players and 5.0s running amok. Laughing. Smirking. Drop-shotting.

We did not think this one through.

I’m convinced opposing teams purposefully gave points away so they wouldn’t finish first. It looked pretty dicey there in the middle part of the season when all the teams were bunched up, but a few weeks of the other captains “selflessly” letting everyone play and coincidentally making those players drive an hour across major highways to play the team I’m on and whaddaya know. Those opposing teams are safely not in first place now.

We are. Sigh.

I’m not saying this team I’m on isn’t good enough to place first outright in this particular flight. I’m saying I find the line-ups of the other teams that were in the running a few weeks ago when they played us extremely suspicious.

But maybe those other teams were onto something.

Maybe those teams realized that there’s a price for winning in recreational adult tennis.

It’s funny. I’ve never aspired to play in Flight 1 or Open A or whatever the topmost flight is in whatever non-USTA league currently in season. Those flights are in some far-away/make-believe land that doesn’t exist in my world. All I want is to win my matches, for my teammates to win theirs, and for my team to finish in first, and we’ll just keep doing that for all of time. It’ll be fun!

Cause that is the fun. The fun is in the journey. In getting frustrated with yourself for not getting all two points. In getting frustrated with your teammates for not getting one point. In being in the running of placing and then falling juuusssttt short. And then everyone regroups and works on their games until the next time the league starts up. We’ll definitely snag first place then!!

With perhaps a little help from the fact that the first place (and probably second place) team got bumped up so the road to first place just got a tad easier. Huh. Never thought about that.

But now the team I’m on will be moving on up to Flight 1. Big, scary Flight 1. Where sometimes they’ll put a 5.5 on line 3. That’s…I don’t even know what to say about that.

Randomly, someone needs to create a league JUST FOR 5.0s and up. We don’t have a USTA league for them in my town so then they get really antsy and start pawing at the ground looking for adequate people to play but there’s no organized league for them to beat each other up in and they take their anger out on the rest of us mere mortals because someone thought it was okay for them to be in the same non-USTA leagues as us AND THEN they plumb get themselves bumped down when they finally do get a 5.0 USTA league up and running once every three years. HOW IS THAT OKAY.

But that’s another blog post for another day. Ahem.

Back to me. Will I even get to play in the fall once we’ve moved up? And when I play, will I win? The two biggest factors in what makes players of tennis teams happy. Sure, I captain teams and I wish my players would think about the good of the team for once. But I don’t captain this one, and I will take full advantage of that and relish the freedom of getting to be in full-on player mode. Full-on selfish, Diva player mode.

I’m telling you my captain did not think this one all the way through. This whole moving up thing. And how it was going to affect me.

Surely not all the Flight 1 teams’ worst players are 5.0s, right? Some of those people up there are quack tennis players like me who somehow swindled their way onto a Flight 1 caliber team, yes? Hello? Is this thing on?

Actually, that’s another thing. This wasn’t a Flight 1 caliber team until a season or so ago. Well, the other teams in Flight 2 olé-ing the line-up helped, too, but no, seriously, this team has done a bang-up job of recruiting. When players on this team say someone is “really good,” it’s true! It’s the darndest thing. Each addition to the roster over the last year has been better than the last.

I should have said something. Spoken up. Alerted the media about this terrible practice.

You should always be suspicious of your team’s new recruits. There are consequences to adding shiny new objects to tennis teams. Sure, those shiny players will improve the team…by taking away MY playing time.

Although…I did win most of my matches this season. With my front row seat, I will humanely concede that those players – my teammates, I suppose – deserve to play in Flight 1 against worthier opponents as opposed to the sacrificial lambs that were trotted out by the calculating opposing captains this season.

I mean…if you can play one against three and win with me as your partner, then yeah. You’re pretty darn good.

On another random note, I would strongly suggest everyone play doubles with a 5.0 partner at least once in your life. It’s the most delightful experience. You just stand on your patch of court somewhere far away from the action and she does the rest. She can get to any ball. Sometimes I’ll run away from the ball that’s hit at me while yelling “YOURS” over my shoulder to see what she does. She’ll get to it. Hit it back. For a winner.

I want one for my birthday.

And then you get to feel smug about your lot in the recreational tennis world because you beat these formidable foes even though you had very, very, very little to do with the outcome. You might as well have been a fern.

I love recreational adult doubles tennis so much.

Well, anyway, now that I’ve gotten all that out of my system, I will acquiesce to my new role on the team. Yes, I’m still going to be on the team. Don’t think just because this team I’m on moved up to a flight above my pay grade that they’ll be getting rid of me that easily.

I don’t mind paying to watch good tennis so I’ve already picked out my spot over here. On the sidelines. With my floppy hat. Cheering on these teammates of mine as they play tennis the way it was meant to be played. With overheads smashed for winners instead of whiffed in embarrassment.

Get ready, Flight 1. My teammates are coming!

Did I mention I would be all the way over here on the sidelines trashtalking the opponents? NEW ROLE ACCEPTED. 😀