Taking Weekend Tennis Seriously

Recreational tennis is heralded as one of those sports adults should play: it’s life-long fun; it’s good for the physical health; and it brings together strangers who, at best, may end up being friends for life, and, at the very least, may enrich each other’s lives.

We know better.

There is something wrong with my knee now. There was nothing wrong with my knee until last week when I played scrabble tennis. As I was scrambling madly around during a point in a doubles practice match, I inadvertently banged my racquet on the side of my knee, and I felt…something. I never would have played in said match except one of my “friends” said, “I am free for tennis on such-and-such morning within this particular time frame” and then looked at me expectantly. “Um, o-okay, I-I’ll set something up then!” Because that’s what I do. As a sucker friend.

All of the women I played with in that fateful practice match – this will be the match I look back at when I have to have knee surgery – are all “friends.” You know what they said when I was trying to walk out the wobbliness in my knee?

<sarcastically>“Uh-huh, sure looks serious.”</>

“She’s faking it.”

“Come on, Vutam.”

To their credit, they did offer to stop the match prematurely…as they were taking their respective places for the next point.

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I feel like a million things have happened since last I wrote that have rocked my personal tennis world, and at some point when my head has cleared, I hope to address the two major ones. But if I never do, which is more likely, here’s where my head is at with those things:

The Qualifying Tournament: If I weren’t me, I would concentrate on what was probably the best part of the QT, or what I like to call, the worst thing that happened to my 4.0 team: my teammates mercilessly razzing me for eating chilli cheese fries as my pre-game meal and blaming that for why I cramped up/lost in the deciding match that pretty much dashed the hopes and dreams of my team for the tournament. If I weren’t me, I would focus on how much I laughed and laughed during that team bonding experience and how much I enjoyed the team camaraderie while we were rallying and figuring out how to win all five lines of our last flight match in order to advance (which we didn’t do). Alas, it’s me so…

Early Season League Ratings: In my USTA section, mid-year ratings come out around this time. USTA ratings are a BIG deal in my town. It’s just…it’s just stupid how big a deal it is. Teams disband; relationships are severed; and people cry because of this one silly pdf file.

There are 3 main reactions when ratings come out: 1. “Darn right.” 2. “Crap.” 3. “EXCUSE ME? How did the powers that be not recognize my greatness??” Remind me that I want to break down these thoughts and all the different variations just in time for when the year-end ratings come out. This year’s year-end list in particular is going to be a lot of fun…

…because I got bumped up when mid-season ratings came out. I’m sure I’ll unleash my hot sports opinions on this sudden bit of news at some point, but that is not this post (here’s a tease for you: I didn’t go undefeated and I barely won several of my matches this season. They clearly were meeting a quota by bumping me up). This post is about what happened afterwards and how I’ve inadvertently found myself in the cross hairs of one of the grand wizards of my tennis community.

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You are never going to believe this…

So remember when I laughed and laughed at the end of the last post like I had everything figured out and I said I was going to captain again? Remember that? Remember how haughtily and cavalier I was about captaining like it wasn’t the most stressful, frustrating, and aggravating thing I’ve taken on since I gave up party planning for my tennis teams?

Remember how I gave up party planning for my tennis teams because it was so stressful, frustrating, and aggravating?

Well, the tennis gods read my last post – they’re totally subscribers – and they said to themselves, “We’re going to jog that silly person’s memory about how much fun captaining really is. Let’s challenge this whole ‘next time’ big talk of hers.”

Because guess what? My USTA Thursday team is going to the Qualifying Tournament after all.

Unbelievable.

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Maybe my tennis team lost the last match of the season so that I would post regularly again.

Joke’s on them, of course. It’s taken me nearly two weeks to get over that loss. HAH!

I’m still not over it. I’m still in Phase One of the Don’t Make Play-Offs By One Match Recovery Stage: moping around in my sweat pants. Who’s joining me for Phase Two?

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Captaining is going well. Thanks for asking. I’m learning a lot. Every week, every day, every match, and every player is a learning experience.

I hate learning.

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I’m co-captaining two USTA teams this season – one Thursday, one Saturday – and I’ve been playing team tennis for the last few years…so what I’m saying is if anyone from either of my current USTA teams is reading this, I’m totally not talking about you, you good, strong player-woman, you.

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Remember when I said I would never captain a weekend warrior adult tennis team? Yeah, about that…

Look it. I did not ask to captain. I didn’t go seeking for an open team tennis captaining/babysitting/therapy-listening/ego-massaging position in the help wanted section of my local tennis pro shop. I didn’t start my own team. Someone promised me beef tacos, ruffled Hickory BBQ chips, and chocolate milk if I would do it. I am a sucker for beef tacos, ruffled Hickory BBQ chips, and chocolate milk food. I totally would have done it just for curly fries. Besides, why in the world would a tennis-crazy control freak like me agree to captain unless she was forced to?

I had to take on the captaining crown when it was presented to me. I couldn’t let this poor village suffer when they found themselves leaderless! People’s lives were at stake here!

Speaking of those players, none of them read this blog. Thankfully. Don’t anyone be telling them about this Exhibit A in my insanity court case now, ya hear? Those players certainly wouldn’t agree to be on a team I captained if they knew about this ode to crazy. So between you and me, dear reader, this post outlines the rules of my dictatorship.

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Hi, I’m Christy Vutam, and I’m a singles tennis player.

Being a singles player in the weekend warrior tennis community makes you something of a curious spectacle. You…run? You…are okay with playing by yourself? You…don’t think the point of playing tennis is exclusively to socialize?

You…can’t volley?

Let’s get something out of the way right now. Asking someone if she plays singles or making any sort of references to her singles abilities after she’s just played a doubles tennis match is a slap in the face to that player. She’s playing doubles. She’s…okay, trying to play doubles, bless her. When you bring up her singles game, you’re essentially saying she’s not a good doubles player. You are being rude and disrespectful.

Unless, of course, your goal is to ignite an unrelenting, burning passion within her to become a doubles ninja who will eventually show you what a real doubles player looks like and then beat you on a regular basis at ease with her mad doubles skills even if it takes her several years to actually enact this revenge, then that’s cool. Ignite away.

Sorry. Back to singles.

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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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If you haven’t signed up, yet, for the USTA team you told the captain or the co-captain you would join this spring/summer (real USTA is only a couple of months away; YES!), you are making your captain nervous. Yes, the league starts in April for men and in May for women and mixed. Yes, there’s no deadline to sign up. But dear goodness in Heaven, what if someone swoops in, whispers sweet nothings in your ear, and steals you away? WHAT IF THAT HAPPENS?!

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