Taking Weekend Tennis Seriously

Captaining takes a lot out of me.

So last fall I realized it’s up to me to create an adult recreational tennis team I want to captain, that people can’t read my mind and don’t magically become the team players I want them to be. I’ve now got team rules to weed out players who would cause extraneous headaches for me as I once more assume the already inherently soul-crushing role of captainship.

As each season brings about new sets of captain-player problems, I keep adding rules.

There is no doubt that I will end up weeding out everyone on the planet and then I won’t have enough players to lord over captain. And my oh my, what a glorious feeling that will be.

The only reason why I still captain is because people keep saying yes. Like enough people to form a team with say yes. As soon as I alienate those people and I don’t have enough players to field a competitive weekly line-up with, I will stop captaining and then I will stop playing tennis for a while.

Every time I say that to someone, they laugh and roll their eyes as if I would actually stop playing tennis. Um, no. I’m being serious. Captaining makes me want to stop playing team tennis.

That’s how much out of me captaining takes.

• As someone who is not a parent, I feel like captaining is a lot like parenting. A lot of “Mom-um, I can’t find my sock!!” or “Mom-um, Sally’s sticking her tongue out at me!!” or “Mom-um, my birthday party doesn’t have the color red anywhere!! THIS IS THE WORST BIRTHDAY PARTY EVER.”
• Letting me know you’re angry at me for a captaining decision I make means you won’t be playing on a team I captain ever again, but I’m sure you knew that when you were expressing yourself. The feeling is mutual.
• I hate excuses. I flat-out hate excuses. Stop it. Take responsibility for the loss. And here’s a crazy idea. Go put some work into your tennis game and be a better tennis player.
• Guys. I have no idea what the weather is like at the tennis facility I am not at.
• Consistency should be the foundation of your tennis game.
• Put the volley away, people. Also? Volley.

But the volley doesn’t count if the ball doesn’t go over the net and into the other side of the court. I know. I know. I want you to be more active at the net and look to volley, but I’m also stipulating that the volleys have to be, like, well executed.

AND put away.*

Tennis is hard, huh? 😉

*No, not all volleys are put away volleys. But when you get a put away volley, PUT IT AWAY.

• Plenty of players don’t follow through on their groundstrokes but get the ball in. It’s when they’re told to follow through and the ball sails out that they learn to never, ever follow through ever again.
• So what if you’re a strong doubles player if no one on the team wants to play doubles with you.
• If you consider yourself a better doubles player than singles player but the rest of the team considers you a singles player, then…
• The USTA has a league rule that penalizes a team that defaults the majority of the lines in one team match-up at any league stage (regular season and play-offs). That team is basically given the “death penalty,” and the team has to disband effective immediately. I went to SMU so I’m familiar with the sports death penalty and its crushing effect on an athletic team.

I think the punishment is rather harsh for a rather innocuous crime (quite possibly mistake), especially on the first instance of it during the regular season, but if your local league doesn’t have its own rule for a team default – which it totally could – then those are the consequences.

Here’s where I’m going with that: the next time the opposing team defaults the majority of the lines against my team for whatever reason, I’m going to turn in the scores as is and take the team win.

If my team couldn’t ever field at least three of the five USTA lines on Match Day, then I’d fully expect the opposing captain to do the same to me. Them’s the breaks.

…oh, wait, no. That would never happen to a team I was captaining.

Don’t have a rule you don’t actually want to enforce. Also? Enforce your rules. Also? State out all your rules and policies outright. Also? Words like “should” and “expect” basically mean there’s no rule.

• Float matches are the worst.

Float matches are like predetermined, scheduled rained out matches where the two captains/teams have to figure out themselves when to play the lines. I do understand their purpose: teams and players will get more playing time chances. But you know what else are the worst? Rained out matches. However, it’s not like someone decided to have the matches rained out.

Actually, I stand corrected. There is something worse than a float match during the regular season.

Two float matches during the regular season.

• So for the longest time professional baseball resisted incorporating video review, and people couldn’t understand why Major League Baseball was being such a fuddy-duddy and stuck in their ways and not taking advantage of the changing times and the advanced technology to enhance their product for the better. I feel the same way when it comes to the tennis league I care the most about and want to see improved. There’s this most amazing tool called the Internet, ya see…
• At least once a season, I will think to myself, “I could get these rain make-up matches rescheduled quite easily if only I didn’t have to deal with the opposing captain.” Not every captain is difficult to work with. Just the ditzy ones.
• It’s remarkable how many people want to play with the best player(s) on the team. If I ever have trouble discerning who on the team is really, really good, the rest of the team will clear that right up for me. The best players on the team are always the ones the rest of the team will want to play with a) without having ever played with them or b) while having only played with them for one set in a round robin doubles practice match. Two years ago.

Teammates who aren’t the best players on the team? “I’ve only played with her once so I’m not comfortable partnering up with her in a for-reals match. Sorry, Captain.”

• The sign of a top player is her willingness to play with pretty much anyone on the team. That’s the other way I figure out who on the team is really, really good. They’re always the ones who say, “I’ll play with anyone” (along with “I can play on either side”) without any caveats or conditions. It’s the rest of us mere mortals who aren’t secure enough in our own tennis abilities who are unwilling to play with just anyone.
• If you are on the bottom half of the team doubles ladder, being selective with who you like to play doubles with – i.e. only wanting to play with one of the best players on the team – doesn’t help your cause.
• There’s nothing I enjoy more as a captain than when a player tells me she doesn’t have a preference and can play either side in doubles and then later tells her doubles partner she prefers a particular side. Why in the world are you lying to your doubles partner??
• The best thing about captaining is talking line-up strategy. There’s nothing more ridiculous in all the captaining stuff I do but it’s the thing I love doing the most. “Do you think [the other captain] will play [player’s name] on the singles line? So then who is she going to put in doubles? And what if she thinks I think she’s going to stack? WHAT THEN?”
• I am not so good with the…um, what do you call them…line-ups. It’s unbelievable how many times I text someone my proposed line-up, and that person texts me back with a better line-up using nearly the same players.

Also? I’ve had opposing captains and opposing players let me know when I have screwed up the line-up.

“Um…[looks around at the players present] These aren’t the players I was expecting you’d be bringing.” To which I said, “Wait, tell me about my team! Who did you think I’d be bringing?? BECAUSE I DON’T KNOW.”

“If you had played [insert player here], you would have won.” This has been said on at least two different occasions by different people after my team lost 2-3.

• Captaining makes me want to be a better team tennis player for my captains. Or quit teams I can’t be good team players for. Some people think everyone should captain a team at least once in their lives so they can experience the stress that is captaining and then they’ll not commit so many captain-player faux pas. I don’t necessarily agree with that. I believe people are going to people and act the way they’re going to act because that’s just who they are and how they’re wired, regardless of – and in many cases, despite – their experiences. And then it’s just a question of do I want to put up with this.

Do I?