Taking Weekend Tennis Seriously

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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In the latest in my series of Titles/Positions I Could Never Hold, I’m adding Tennis Instructor to the list (and not just because I’m not a good enough tennis player to do it). I think it’s a pretty neat job, honestly. Getting to be outside. Getting to be active. Time probably goes by quicker for them than time does for me as I stare glassy eyed at my computer screen by hour three of the work day. Getting to help people.

What a noble thing that is: Helping people. Teaching people. Making people better. What a terrific concept.

And therein lies the rub. Teaching people is a terrific concept…until you add in the actual, you know, people to the mix.

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From espn.go.com. I would absolutely attribute the photographer if I knew that information…

This is Matthew Stafford. As a reader of this blog, you probably do not know who Matthew Stafford is. Matthew Stafford is the starting quarterback for the Detroit Lions, a National Football League team. Quarterback. Stereotypically, the head of the jocks. What I find fascinating about Matthew Stafford is that when his picture appears on my television screen (NFL telecasts show head shots of the starting lineup, #nowyaknow) as it has for the last four seasons, I can’t believe that that’s what he actually looks like. That does not look like a starting quarterback in the NFL. That looks like a frat boy. And if you told me he played football, I would assume he was a linesman. You know, those bigger guys who don’t ever get to touch the football. Those guys.

I bring up Matthew Stafford because I’m warning those of you who haven’t seen me in the last hibernating month or so that that’s how I look right now. I look like Matthew Stafford. My face is pudgy. I just wanted to brace everyone for this likeness so no one does a severe double take and injures themselves in the pro shop before we even get out onto the courts.

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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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I’ve done it. I’ve figured it out. I’ve finally realized what the ultimate goal for tennis players is. I understand now what kind of player we pay tens of thousands of dollars in our lifetimes for teaching pros to mold us into.

The reason why we want to be better tennis players, y’all, is not simply because it would be a neat thing.  It’s so we can be awesome enough players that we can take balls away from our doubles partners. The reason for wanting to improve at tennis, you guys, is so we can be so good we don’t give our doubles partners any more chances to mess up a point, a game, a set, a match than the absolute bare minimum.

Ta-dah! Read the rest of this entry »

After spectacularly choking away a match and not taking it too well, I naturally looked to youtube for inspirational tennis videos that would pump me up for the next battle.  Because, you know, not watching/listening to the proper inspirational music video/song before competition is what causes me to lose. Read the rest of this entry »

Pre-post digression:

A couple of people have suggested I need to find my doubles soul mate. You know, someone I can play with on a regular basis so we know each other’s tendencies, dominate a field we’re too good to be playing in because all our friends play at this level but I digress, and grow old together. While I don’t completely agree with this “need” (where’s the fun in playing doubles when you and your partner know what the other is going to do? I thought trying to win despite your partner was the whole point of doubles), I’m going to start compiling a list of qualities my doubles soul mate needs to possess because I know a funny concept when I stumble upon it. So before each post, I’ll try to list out a new necessary trait. Because you know. This is about my needs here.

• Needs to be able to communicate in a timely manner through both text and email.

My needs here.

On to the actual blog post.

In one of my early meandering posts about doubles, I said that “some players will take whatever you tell them and just go do it…because they’re awesome.”  I am not one of those people. Read the rest of this entry »

Every day when I go into work, there’s an intersection right before I pull into the parking garage that makes my heart flutter a little.  You see, it’s the sort of intersection that splits into three possibilities, none of the possibilities being straight ahead.  Perhaps you have never seen one of these roadway designs.  Don’t worry; you aren’t alone.  Neither have any of my fellow drivers.

Crude drawing to follow: Read the rest of this entry »

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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