Taking Weekend Tennis Seriously

So I’ve never understood the USTA Playoffs.

Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE USTA Playoffs. I love pretty much everything about it. First of all, I personally do stupid well during the Playoffs…to the point where opponents will want to play me again after that weekend only to be very disappointed at my true tennis abilities when playoff testosterone isn’t coursing through my veins and I’m playing very much within my mind.

But what I really love is how much heightened everything is. This is recreational adult league tennis at its finest. I love the do-or-die atmosphere. I love the tension. I love the captains who hover around the tournament desk to try to sneak peaks at the opposing teams’ line-ups (captains are awful human beings. Watch out for that).

I love the people who are most certainly not treating the poor person running the tournament desk like they themselves would want to be treated and who need to know what’s going on RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW at all times (see my last parentheses).

I love that opposing players will glare at me when they think I’m over-cheering my players (there’s no such thing as over-cheering during playoff tennis).

And I love, love the camaraderie. You will never love your teammates more than when you are pulling for them with all your heart and soul to win their very important, very big deal tennis matches.

What I don’t love about USTA Playoffs, however, is the structure.

It confounds me.

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All the world’s a stage / And all the men and women merely players

– William Shakespeare’s As You Like It

There’s a moment – a real, specific instance – at some point in your life in which you realize the USTA rating system aka the National Tennis Rating Program (NTRP) makes no sense.

You look up someone’s rating at the end of the year, let’s say, and you see what their rating is, and your jaw drops; you shake your head at the injustice of it all; and you feel sick to your stomach for that person because that number staring back at you next to that person’s name is the SILLIEST thing you’ve ever beholden.

That’s the moment.

Or my favorite: you look up someone’s rating at the end of the year just for giggles, and you see what their rating is, and there’s a beat in time to allow your eyes to adjust/do a double-take and for your brain to digest the number staring back at you next to that person’s name and then…the next thing you know you’re rolling on the ground laughing your a—off because that is the SILLIEST thing you’ve ever beholden.

That’s the moment.

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• Sometimes I’ll watch someone hit a forehand and cringe as the body and racquet are seemingly at war with one another and there’s awkward contact made with the ball. I’ll shake my head all dramatic-like at the terrible display of tennis form. Later at work, I’ll be listening to a song and start dancing to it…until I catch a reflection of my nonrhythmic self in the glass and think, “Touché, world. Touché.”

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The time has come to talk about the warm-up. The tennis warm-up (called a “knock-up” in Great Britain, #nowyaknow) is the short, polite hitting back and forth from player to player before the start of matches or lessons in order to, you know, warm up one’s muscles. It generally begins with each player a few feet away from the net bopping the ball to each other. Here are the attitudes of the various USTA levels towards this supposedly polite exchange.*

*I don’t say this often, and I’m not going to put this disclaimer before every post so listen up: I am clearly exaggerating throughout this post. And this blog. And yet not exaggerating all at the same time. Welcome to my blog. Thank you for reading!

3.0s – Just happy to be playing. Hoping to make contact with the ball (that feeling doesn’t go away when you’re a 4.0, by the way). Thrilled as long as the ball goes over the net and inside the lines.

3.5s – Can make solid contact with the ball. Sorta. Super, super excited that they can routinely make contact. Now trying out this power thing they’ve heard so much about.

4.0s – Can hit the ball solidly with power. Feel like they must wail on everything with all their might. It’s like they’ve discovered fire, and now they’re setting ablaze everything in sight with this crazy glint in their eyes.

4.5s – Control. So much awesome, beautiful, tranquil control. Can get nearly any ball wildly hit at them back and almost perfectly teed up for their hitting partner.

5.0s – Please. Like I have any idea how 5.0s warm up. I imagine it would be just heavenly though. With angels singing.

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This is a time capsule post, in which a year or two or five or ten years from now, I’ll look back at this person, shake my head side to side slowly with a wry grin and a knowing look on my face, and chuckle out, “Oh, honey.” Like you are about to.

Someday I’m going to be a more understanding person. I’m sincerely working on that. But before I’m lobotomized by society and I’ve stopped being the wildly entertaining person that I am right now, I’ll keep churning out these simply delightful posts in the meantime. I hope that’s okay with everyone.

Now I relate to this movie.

I don’t look forward to being older.

I don’t look forward to not playing tennis because it’s below 50 degrees. Because there’s such a thing as too. cold.

I don’t look forward to not playing at certain times because it’s too early, too hot, or too late.

I don’t look forward to not playing because it’s too windy.

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For the last two years, I usually am the teammate that volunteers to organize the post season team get-together.  I say usually because I am going to stop ever, ever, ever, ever organizing such terrible things as of today.  Yesterday’s get-together was my last one.  Organizing such things is not fun.  People suck.  And I usually end up hating at least half, if not more than half, of my teammates because of the process.

Never, ever, ever again. Read the rest of this entry »

If you are a frequent reader of this blog, you know that USTA is very important.  Or, maybe you don’t.  Maybe I just think I’ve written that line in every blog post, when in reality, I’ve only thought it every time I write an entry.  I think a lot of things.  Luckily, I don’t always write them down.

…that’s frightening, actually, if you think about it…

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With USTA play-offs starting this weekend, I thought we would talk about the silly people who don’t communicate well, who don’t take weekend tennis seriously, and who drive their captains and teammates nuts as a result.  I don’t see how the former spun off into the latter anymore than you do, but that’s my intro! Read the rest of this entry »