Taking Weekend Tennis Seriously

The USTA Combo Tournament was underway this weekend for my area (and will take place next weekend for the area an hour from here – Hi, Fort Worth!). I didn’t play in it, which confirms my suspicions that if I didn’t captain a USTA team, I would never get to play USTA tennis.

I’m playin’ with ya. I’m honestly relieved that my reputation for captaining teams and needing to micromanage precedes me and people automatically assume I’m putting together a team and don’t ask me to play on theirs. Yes, that’s it, Christy. Keep telling yourself that. 😉

I have never quite understood the Combo Tournament.

Someone sadistically thought it would be an excellent idea to pair up two people of different ratings to play another pairing of the same different ratings. Three lines for each team match and voilà. The Combo Tournament!

Obviously, this someone was the lower rated player in his/her Combo doubles partnership.

I have been on teams in which I was not good enough to play with certain teammates, but of course, the only person who didn’t know I wasn’t good enough was me. If I had known at the time that I could have just shrewdly entered into this tournament to pair up with these too-good-to-partner-up-with-under-normal-circumstances players, I would have been ALL over this.

Did I describe the person who thought of this concept as sadistic? There’s a part of me that would like to change the term to genius. Total genius.

I have been very fortunate in the Combo Tournaments I have played in of being paired up with very awesome partners, people who took over our Combo matches while the “better” player couldn’t tell the ball from her kneecap. I’m just not one to tempt fate and think I’ll be lucky enough to continue having crazy, amazing partners who are technically a rating below me but are so good as to carry me.

Because that’s the thing. One of the side effects of advancing in ratings is that your partners at each ascending level tend to be the most incredible tennis players you have ever played with. I’m still doing the same nonsense I’ve always done (hitting the ball down the line, hitting the ball as hard as I possibly can, etc.), but I’m playing with partners who can make up for my being me. I can be free to be my doubles-awful self and not try to get better and still win!

And isn’t that the whole point of doubles? To find a partner who covers up all of your mistakes and completes you as you are? And then you don’t let go of her. Ever. And you make sure to b-slap anyone who tries to take her away from you.

By the way, you know how I know when someone is decidedly not my doubles soul mate? When after the fifth time or so of my going to get a high five from my partner (I have to high five all the time), she says to me patronizingly, “Oh, so you’re a hand clapper? I like that!”

Hand clapper is now a term that I can never un-hear.

So when I think about playing in the Combo Tournament in which I would be the higher-rated player because there is no such thing as 9.5 Combo in my area, I envision my partner and I losing and she’s looking at me with utter disgust: “I thought you were supposed to be good. I can’t believe you’re a 4.5.”

Owwwww. Do you see why I don’t play the Combo Tournament? I cannot handle that many truth apples, and my imaginary Combo doubles partner is a big meanie.

But let’s not let you off the hook, either, hypothetical Combo Tournament partner of mine. What do you mean you can’t hit a backhand half-volley winner from the baseline while using your opposite hand and pirouetting on your follow-through? This is the kind of quality of partner I am now accustomed to, and I cannot play doubles under these non-pirouetting circumstances.

Just so we’re clear, if I played in a Combo Tournament level in which I was the lower-rated player of my doubles partnership these days when I’m now acutely aware of my tennis abilities, there would be a cartoon shadow outline of myself lingering in my place after I bolted from the tennis court because the higher rated opponent did the “I’m coming for you” gesture.

These are the images in my head when I think of the Combo Tournament. This is why I don’t willingly play it, much less captain a team.

But luckily, many recreational adult tennis players don’t suffer from the same mental ailments that I do and have been enjoying themselves thoroughly this weekend and will also next weekend, I’m sure. I’ll just leave you with this last bit of observation when I went to cheer on tennis friends in the tourney these last few days: listening to people guess incorrectly who the lower-rated partner is after watching the doubles team hit for a bit is the best. Now that is fun! 😀