Taking Weekend Tennis Seriously

Hello, Dear Reader!

I know.

I’ve been away. 🙁

The honest reason for it? I just didn’t feel like writing.

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I remember being the worst player in weekly round robin doubles outings and feeling sorry for the latest person who had to be stuck with me and take her turn losing a set. I remember being drop shotted and trick shotted upon ad nauseum. I remember not understanding why I was losing doubles matches to people who I felt like didn’t possess anywhere near the quality of groundstrokes as I did. I remember being labeled over and over and over again as a singles player after doubles matches and hating it. I remember trying to beat this particular partnership in practice matches for nearly a year, falling in straight sets every time, and on at least one occasion, shedding tears over the seemingly hopelessness of it all. I remember losing to pushers. I remember not knowing how to volley. I remember not playing myself in tough, must-win team matches – much to the confusion of my teammates – because I didn’t have confidence in my tennis game. I remember needing to prove my tennis abilities to everyone. I remember forgetting how to hit forehand groundstrokes and feeling so very lost. I remember ducking from screaming balls coming straight at me when I was at the net. I remember being blown off the court by vicious baseline groundstroke winners. I remember being mad at my partner for making ME look bad. I remember being bumped up to 4.5 and when I asked someone to join my newly created 4.5 team, she said “Ah, looking to get into the 4.5 captaining game already, huh?”

I remember. I remember because every once in awhile I’ll be jarred into one of these memories after a tennis outing in which I’m startled by how different my experiences are today than they’ve been over the last five years.

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I hit tennis rock bottom the other day.

I brought it upon myself, of course. You see, dear reader, I am a tennis hypochondriac. I am constantly tinkering around with my strokes and am always in the process of learning a brand new stinkin’ technique because of my perpetual need to get better at tennis. Three months ago it was my serve. Currently, it’s my forehand groundstroke. In a few months, it’ll be my backhand groundstroke.

My volleys are a never-ending technique nightmare that I have yet to wake up from. And my overhead is a lost cause…so I will try to take every ball that remotely resembles an overhead instead of letting my doubles partner hit the surefire basic groundstroke because I believe that’s how I’ll overcome my overhead issue.

And after all the work that’s been put into my serve thus far, I still double fault at an alarming rate.

Sigh.

Just another lovely reason why you don’t want to be partnered up with me. You should let our captain know if you haven’t already.

Unless I’m our captain, um…

Tangent thought #1: Hey, have you ever wondered how many people on your tennis team have asked your captain to not be paired up with you?

Tangent thought #2: Good grief, you know what would be an excellent way to make sure you got partnered up with the one player on the team you want to play with? No, not tell the captain. Don’t be ridiculous. Don’t do that. Don’t be that player.

NO, what you should do is to piss off everyone else you’re paired up with till there’s only ONE person left on the team the captain can put you with. GENIUS.

You. You out there. You know who you are. And you are a genius. My hats off to you, madam.

So, anyway, I’m in the process of overhauling my forehand groundstroke, and…

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House Sitting Adventures: The dogs are pawing at the space in between the floor and the cabinet. There’s something stuck underneath. I get down and lie on the floor to see what all the fuss is about and pull out an Angry Birds chew toy. Still on my belly, I throw the toy over yonder to oblige the anxious, panting dogs and then immediately realize my fatal mistake: “You’re about to be stampeded and trampled on like Mufasa was by the antelopes in The Lion King!”

Thankfully, the thundering 25 lb cocker spaniels have the good sense to run around me in their mad chase to the toy, and by the time I’ve recovered from seeing my life flash before my eyes and have righted myself, the six dogs are once more beside me, tails wagging, toy dropped, ready for me to throw Angry Bird again.

I think a lot about why people play tennis. Because I often don’t understand why I play tennis. Why do people think tennis is fun when it brings so much…frustration? Is it the complaining? Is that the part that’s fun? That’s gotta be it. With how much complaining that goes on in weekend tennis, that makes the most sense. The actual tennis itself is secondary.

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House sitting adventures: I’m house sitting cats. These cats are free to come and go as they please as they have a pet door in the back of the house. Usually, however, these cats will wait for me to hold the door open for them before coming in. Well, no, I take that back. They’ll wait for me to hold the door open for them; I’ll oblige; and then they’ll stop a foot from the door and survey me uncertainly. Now I have to coax them to come in and try to convince them that I’m not scary (it’s my first time pet sitting for these cats so we’re just getting used to each other). I’ll spend a minute just standing there, holding the door open as still as I can because any creak will scare them away, and talk to the cats as if I were a part of the FBI Crisis Negotiation Unit. After the cats have either scurried inside or scampered away, I’ll look up, and of course, there’s a neighbor watching me. I leave her so she can laugh openly at this display of human-animal deference also known as the crazy lady talking to cats.

I met with a house/pet sitting client the other day, and as is the case with most of my clients, the wife plays tennis and the husband does not. He could not stop poking fun at the irrational tennis culture his wife and I are a part of.

“What is with you tennis players and your addiction to the game? An orthopedic friend was telling me how a guy with a broken leg was trying to figure out how to keep playing tennis. I mean, you’re not going to keep playing tennis; you have a broken leg!”

Let me try to explain the sickness.

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Of the many tennis shots I don’t have, hitting a forehand groundstroke isn’t one of them. I like to think of this next line delivered in Uncle Rico’s voice from Napoleon Dynamite: I can whip a forehand groundstroke winner on you from just about anywhere on the court.

Well, I’ll try, anyway. And trying’s half the battle! So that’s a 50% chance I’ll hit a winner and a 50% chance I won’t. I like these chances. And the logic.

My opponent loves those chances, too, by the way.

When I was an up-and-coming weekend warrior adult tennis player, the scouting report on me was to hit to my backhand – stay the heck away from my forehand. In fact, I know of at least one tennis friend who told another tennis friend to do this before playing me a couple of years ago. Have I forgotten about this violation of trust? Actually, I did. Until I started writing this blog post. And now I just remembered that I’m not happy with you, you supposed tennis friend. As soon as USTA is over and I don’t need you to win tennis matches for me so I can feel good about myself, I’m not going to talk to you for a whole week.

Hah! That’ll show you. It’s not like you’ll be relieved about not being bugged about yet another inane tennis thing for one glorious, peaceful week or anything.

Anyway, I’m here to tell you to throw that scouting report out the window. Don’t worry about not hitting to my forehand now. My forehand can’t kill you anymore. It can’t even hit the ball.

I have the blasted forehand groundstroke yips.

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Straight from my phone to you, dear reader:

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Most of these annoyances weren’t pointed out by my doubles partners, but they don’t have to say anything to me.  Their death stares and silence speak volumes.  Read the rest of this entry »

The first time I heard the term “weekend warrior” applied to me, I was offended.  Weekend Warrior?!  No, brah, I am not just some schlob who picks up the ole tennis racquet once a week if I can manage to pull my lazy frame off the couch long enough to change into the proper tennis clothing – or not.  I mean, as long as I wear clothes and some sort of footwear, I can play tennis, right? – and go out and hit the ball willy nilly and get all excited when I hit that one hard shot inside the court on the other side of the net out of 20 tries.  I play tennis seriously! Read the rest of this entry »

Do you need to know about my game?  Does this help you understand the perspective I’m coming from?  Are you able to relate to me better if you know something about how I play tennis?

Shouldn’t we all have the same perspective on tennis?  The point is to win, right?  We’re all trying to win?  Hello?  Is this mic on? Read the rest of this entry »