Taking Weekend Tennis Seriously

If you look up my USTA league record on USTA TennisLink as I do before bed each night, you will notice that I am winless in 4.5 league doubles since November of 2013 through this very moment.*

*Technically I’ve won one match…when I played against two 4.0s…with a 4.5 doubles partner…sooooo…

That’s right. I haven’t won a 4.5 USTA league doubles match in over a year.

What’s worse is that starting with the USTA 2014 spring/summer league playoffs through the time of this writing, I have won all my 4.5 USTA singles matches.**

**Never you mind that three of the last four singles matches came down to match tiebreaks, which means I got some seriously lucky bounces. Stop raining on the point I’m trying to make.

This is why I captain a 4.5 USTA team.

If I were to captain my 4.5 USTA team with the goal of, oh, I don’t know, maximizing my team’s chances of winning the team match, let’s just say, I would obviously never play myself in doubles. If I were a good captain with the right priorities, I would have my name penned in on a singles line every week.

Another team tennis captain once told me she purposefully didn’t put herself in lineups so that her players got to play and enjoy themselves. She knew she’d be a better tennis player if she played more for-reals matches, but she was consciously sacrificing the improvement of her tennis game so that her players could have all the fun.

I…don’t do that.

One of my tennis goals is to conquer the tennis doubles game, dagnabit. I once defaulted a singles line with (slightly injured, in my defense) players left on the bench while I made a fool of myself on the doubles line. Another time, I practically pushed a player onto the singles court while I putzed around on the doubles court for my own personal agenda.

If I didn’t captain a USTA team, I would never even sniff the doubles court, much less line one doubles.

Oh, that’s right. When I play USTA doubles, I play line one doubles. I ain’t playing any other doubles line. Because someday I will be a real line one 4.5 doubles player.

Which is all well and good and you know, “YAY GOALS!” but that day is clearly not right now.

Stop being silly with your team line-ups, Christy. Stop subjecting your poor, hapless doubles partner to your special brand of “playing-doubles-to-learn-it” tennis. Stop putting someone who has acutely shown to not be a line one 4.5 doubles player at line one in a 4.5 league, Captain.

I hear you. I do. But, uh, you know what?

It’s my team, and I’ll cry if I want to. 😎