Taking Weekend Tennis Seriously

To kick off one of my non-USTA metropolitan leagues (TCD), here’s a post dedicated to that thing near and dear to the heart of so many of its players and teams: Team Uniforms.

This was supposed to be a real post with full paragraphs and a beginning, middle, and end. And then I started writing.

• Do you know how the big athletic apparel corporations come up with each season’s new outfits? They have a bet on which combination of clashing colors will sell the most.

“These two colors are so mismatched that the public will definitely be onto us this time.”

“Nah. If you put our logo on it and feature it in a glossy magazine, they will buy it.”

“Heeheehee.”

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My Tri-Level team played Sectionals (where the various winners at the city level throughout the state/USTA section compete against each other) this past weekend. Tri-Level is a team tennis event in which three different rated lines of doubles is played for each team match. My team played in the 3.0/3.5/4.0 Tri-Level league.

My team shouldn’t have even been in the Sectionals tournament, but my city got the wild card entry, and the second place team couldn’t go. It fell to us as the 3^rdplace team (we had a couple of injuries that weekend so getting another chance to prove ourselves would have been amazing). We just had the minimum for the 3.5 and 3.0 lines (two players on each line) to even agree to go to Sectionals in the first place. I’m very thankful those gals were able to get off 401K-compensated work (while the domestic engineers on our team couldn’t get off work…think about it…) to drive 230+ miles and play the two Friday matches as well as playing all the matches over the weekend without incident.

You know who couldn’t get off 401K-compensated work (yes, this will be a thing now) on Friday? Me (which was fine because the team’s best 4.0 doubles team played and had to go three sets in both matches to win. They were down match point each time. Wowza). Instead, my right calf and I carried on conversations all day Friday. I kept asking it if it was going to cramp up on me in my match on Saturday. It kept saying, “Um, maybe.” That’s how my cramps generally start: I can feel my right calf thinking about it.

However, driving four hours right before playing is one way of stopping your right calf from thinking.

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• A tennis class of adult beginners is learning how to hit forehands on the adjacent court. Every other word out of the teaching pro is “Excellent!”, “Good!”, or “That was beautiful!” I’m having to duck as the class’s balls come raining down on my side of the fence. If the teaching pro’s goal was to drum up more business for herself, then she’s doing a stupendous job because if she thinks that was beautiful, then I can’t wait to hear what she has to say about my shots. Mine actually go over the net now. On the same court even. I would definitely pay to have a teaching pro tell me how awesome my strokes are for once.

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Recruiting for my weekend and weekday tennis teams is fun. So much fun.

It really is, actually. I haven’t hid behind any swing sets and scouted players, yet, but that’s just because swing sets aren’t included in most playgrounds these days. Plus, I can’t go to every tennis facility in my surrounding cities, watch people play, and ask them to join my teams. That would be crazy. I mean come on now; I work full-time.

It’s also because I haven’t played any meaningful matches with strangers lately. Nothing’s in season for me. Next week, however, I’ve got several real matches I’m partaking in. It’s going to be all I can do to keep my mind focused on the actual match at hand. All I’ll want to do is look around and ask people about playing on my teams.

I’m kidding. All I want to do is beat you in tennis. And then I’ll shake your hand limply and flash a fake smile after I lose.

Such a silly game.

One of the fun things about recruiting is having an excuse to create spreadsheets. Spreadsheets! You know how much I love me some spreadsheets. I’ve got tabs for who’s on my teams, who I’m waiting on responses from, and who has said no. The last tab has the most number of names.

The part I enjoy the most throughout this process is the ridiculous feeling I get that I sorta understand how general managers of sports teams feel. The GMs. Of professional sports teams. I feel them. My people. Yo!

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Telling people I’m funnier than the captain they plan on playing for hasn’t been a strong selling point for why they should play on my teams. It’s kinda like when I stressed free cookies when I was in charge of PR/marketing for my high school’s book club.

My sister and I were discussing playing tennis together over the weekend. She took lessons along with my brother and me when we were in elementary school but didn’t do much more than that (while my brother went on to be the number one junior in the state and I…I could hit the ball over the net. Sometimes it landed inside the fence. It being the racquet). I think it would be super for her to pick up the sport so she can be active, get out of the house, and begin her journey into the ultra-competitive, highly political, incredibly frustrating world of weekend adult tennis. Just super.

I think it would be so super that I suggested that after I taught her how to hit the ball (blind leading the…), maybe we could play doubles together in the lowest level league at our local public tennis facility.

This is how that conversation went down, verbatim:

Sister: “Ok, but you just need to be prepared to lose.”

Beat.

Sister: “But, you lose, anyway, right? Isn’t that what you always talk about: losing?”

Sigh. Yes. Yes, it is.

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A common complaint in weekend adult team tennis is being paired up with a partner whom you’ve never played with before. I, personally, think that is a silly complaint because if both of you would just play well (heck, even if only one of y’all would play well), it probably wouldn’t be a problem. If you and your new partner played fundamentally sound doubles and high percentage tennis, you would probably still win the match despite not being Facebook friends.

But that in itself is a silly argument to make because “playing well” and “weekend adult tennis” are generally mutually exclusive concepts.

And if there wasn’t complaining in weekend adult tennis, why would we even play?

So teams/captains will try to pair up players during practices before match days in order to appease their own slightly unsettled minds but more importantly to tame the even more volatile minds of the head cases they’re forced to put in their lineups. Of all the complaints made about the captain after a loss either to her face and/or behind her back (a reminder: all teams are dysfunctional; there is always one player not happy about something), she’s hoping to nip this one in the bud.

Unless, of course, you played with this particular person only once before match day. Unbelievable! Inexcusable! Ridiculous captaining! GAH.

All joking aside, I understand this psychological need to have played with your partner once/a few times before a real match. You know how dogs sniff each other’s butts as a way to feel each other out? It’s just like that.

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I wish with all my heart that my superpower wasn’t making spreadsheets.

So I tried to recruit players to my USTA spring team yesterday. No, I’m not the captain. I’ve been rebuffed from more than half of them, and I’ll probably be receiving the rest of the bad news by the time this post is published.

The general reason for being unable to join my team is that they’re already on a team for the upcoming season. One player was asked three weeks ago. I met her four weeks ago. I have so much to learn.

Real USTA (spring USTA) starts in May. That is a little over three months away. Why didn’t anyone tell me open season started a while back?!

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Something about me was cool. I can die happily now.

My weekend was made when a little girl told me I had cool shoes. Little girls have never told me I had cool shoes, especially when I was a little girl. Adulthood: still trying to impress little kids.

In the last post, we looked at ways you could try to garner more playing time even when you are not the best player on your team. Being involved with non-playing team activities/kissing up to your captain type stuff that you never see your team’s best player do.

Here are other ways you could try to be more top of mind when your captain sets down to lovingly handcraft the lineup at her desk in her lair with her scouting report of the week’s opponent typed up, her most recent satellite pictures of each opposing player printed, and the appropriate figurines pulled out from her collection of dolls that she had made of the whole league laid out in front of her.

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I am generally not the best player on my tennis team. Because I am rarely the best player on my team, my playing time is a fun weekly guessing game (“The upcoming opponents are near the bottom of the rankings. Maybe my captain will play me this week! Oh, no, what does it mean if she doesn’t play me?”). Limited physical and natural abilities being as they are, I’ve come to understand the importance of standing out in other ways and building up as much good credit with captains as possible. So I can’t volley because I can’t control the awkwardness of my body and its inability to move. But I sure as heck can respond to team emails!

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Pre-post digression: The office suite I work in is getting new carpets. Right now. During the weekday. While we’re all working. After coming in and checking my email for any work that needed immediate attention, I attempt my normal trudge to the kitchen, which is near the office suite entrance (I don’t go through the office suite’s front doors to get to my room) down the hall from my room only to find that I am blocked by the men tearing apart the carpets. Never fear. My room is by the back door. I walk out of the back of my room, out of the office suite, past the building restrooms and the elevators, and through the office suite’s front doors. Oh, what do you know? The kitchen is being renovated as well.

I thought I would be enjoying soup to go along with my busy work – I can’t function at work without eating first – but with the microwave unplugged and probably heavy, my hopes are dashed. What can I eat now?! Thinking quickly, I go for my jar of peanut butter and my sandwich bread. Drat, I’ve been keeping the sandwich bread in the freezer. So, I pick up the also unplugged toaster, a plastic spoon, a plastic knife, and paper plates. The plumber working in the kitchen looks on befuddled. Absolutely befuddled.

Back in my room, I plug in the toaster and set it next to my phone and printer, and all is well with the world. Except for the scent of carpet paste (a co-worker describes it as the smell of dead whales). And the tens of boxes they moved off the carpet and into my room.  And the AC guy also coming in today and setting up shop in my room.  And the carpet guys now blocking the entire hallway.  The items I need for work are in the other room…that I can’t get to.

Today is going to be a good day.

On to the actual blog post.

Team tennis is fun, isn’t it? So much fun. You don’t take weekend tennis seriously if you don’t play team tennis. The camaraderie. The eating out together. The inter-squabbles that aren’t actually voiced to the involved parties. So much fun.

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