Taking Weekend Tennis Seriously

Player Christy is losing her singles match. It’s the 2016 USTA spring season. Of course she is.

The unfamiliar faces of teammates I met an hour ago shortly before the lineup was exchanged are clustered just outside my court. I look helplessly at them as they try to cheer me on towards a comeback that never begins. Drenched in sweat and stinking of tennis ineptitude, I am making a fine first impression on my fellow “super team” teammates.

Yes. That’s right, dear reader. Yours truly is on a “super team,” one of those USTA tennis teams made up mostly of several of the area’s badaces of a particular USTA rating, handpicked by a visionary ringleader, with the attainable goal of advancing all the way to Nationals.*

*Each of us received the exclusive invitation upon discovering a new can of tennis balls in our tennis bags; on the cap was emblazoned the Captain Morgan emblem along with the inscription of the USTA team number.

Well, it’s a good thing I’m surrounded by super team teammates. It’s a good thing all of them can actually play tennis well and take care of business. Good thing because I am losing my singles match to a player rated lower than me.

2016 USTA Spring Season Highlights So Far:

• For the first four matches of the season, I was on a lose-to-a-4.0-beat-a-4.5 streak. Two of my wins came against players hung over.
• For the first six matches of the season, I was on a lose-a-match-win-a-match streak.
• One of my victorious singles opponents cheerfully, sincerely said to me on a changeover after her service game, “Those are really good returns if we were playing doubles!”
• The other team defaulted a line of singles, and after trouncing me, my opponent asked if I was always scheduled to play line one singles. Yes. Yes, I was.
• I fell after hitting a groundstroke in my singles match and quickly got up without stopping play. My opponent – the eventual winner – wasn’t aware of my tumble until the changeover when my teammate on the adjacent court asked me if I was ok. I explained to my concerned opponent that her balls were pushing me back and I had fallen due to the force of her high, loopy shots. Her eyes got big. “My balls? MY balls?” she kept asking.

Dear reader, I got thrown down by the groundstroke of an opponent who didn’t at all think her balls were powerful enough to knock someone over. THIS IS THE KIND OF SEASON I AM HAVING.

As Captain Christy, I wouldn’t recruit my sorry butt right now, much less the captain of a super team.

This cat would have no problem kicking me off a tennis team.

After losing badly to the player rated lower than me with my super team teammates watching from their front row seats, I fully expected the captain to contact me that afternoon and say, “So…clearly you’re not super team material. You fooled us when you streakily played well in those tournaments we saw you in earlier this year.

“You’re a sweet kid, but we’ve got realistic aspirations of reaching Nationals with those on the team who can actually fulfill that objective.

“I’m sorry, but I need to revoke your super team player status.”

And I would have gone quietly.

“I’ve already cleaned out my tennis bag. Here’s the new can of tennis balls with the Captain Morgan emblem invitation back. And the framed picture of the team posing as characters from Pitch Perfect. And a cake I baked to make up for wasting everyone’s time.”

In my imagination, Contrite Christy can bake cakes.

This isn’t at all the 2016 USTA spring I had envisioned for myself. I had a stupid good USTA fall season in the 2015 calendar year. I had a stupid good tournament season during the winter months. I even had a pretty good non-USTA-league season right before USTA started.

Everything leading up to the first day of USTA in May seemed to indicate, “You’re finally able to just casually stroll onto the tennis courts and turn on your tennis super powers whenever you want to without much practice. You’ve arrived!!”

Alas, lesson learned: I will always be the kind of player who needs to constantly work on her game in order to be a 4.5. I am not the kind of 4.5 who regressed from being a borderline 5.5 at her peak in college to one of the best 4.5s in the nation whenever she chooses to grace the recreational tennis world with her presence.

Welp. Before USTA playoffs take place in July, I’ve got four more regular season matches to work out the issues in my head and the kinks in my strokes (my coach says my tennis skills are more developed than my tennis IQ/mental game; I’ve got a lot of great weapons and tools, but sometimes I’m hammering a screw or I’ll have just learned how to saw and so I’ll only bring my saw to the tennis match), and I fully intend to take advantage of all the for-reals match play opportunities left.

It’s too late for me to make the cut for the playoff roster for the super team (oh yeah. It’s one of those super teams. None of that let-everyone-play kumbaya stuff. Intense Christy loves super teams like these), but luckily, women in the Dallas area can play on two USTA teams at the same time (different days) during the regular season and so I do have another captain who’s counting on me to do well for her team come playoffs…

Don’t worry, other captain of mine! I’m totally going to stop being the inconsistent, aggressive, streaky player that I’ve always been. In fact, I just learned the correct footwork for hitting groundstrokes!! Golly gee whiz, cap’n, you can count on me, I promise!!!

Poor, poor Captain Christy… 😉