Taking Weekend Tennis Seriously

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

My boss just asked me if I was still playing tennis. I wonder if he thinks I ask to come in late every Thursday because I need to sleep in after all the vigilante crime-fighting I do the night before. Wednesday’s my night. Batgirl and Wonder Woman have the other days. I’m not too sure why they need off Wednesdays specifically, but we don’t ask too many questions of each other’s personal lives. It’s an unspoken sort of thing.

I am currently double faulting at an alarming rate. I really, really am. Someday, I’ll have a kick serve as my trusty, reliable second serve that’ll always go in while giving my opponents fits when they try to return it. That day is not any time soon. Perhaps not this year.

Now would be the best time to play me if you needed a pick-me-up-super-easy win.

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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 »

I’m not a good doubles player.  That’s why I write about doubles so often.  I didn’t play it when I was growing up and now the concept of volleying and hitting balls out of the air plague my mind to no end.  Doubles is a mystery I spend most of my working day trying to solve.  My boss should look at my pie charts more closely. Read the rest of this entry »

Two posts ago, I wrote, more-or-less, on what not to say to your doubles partner.  I figured I should do a follow-up and cover what to say.

…

Right.  Um… Read the rest of this entry »

I’m always intrigued when opposing doubles teams huddle up.  What are they saying?  Have they picked up on my weaknesses?  What are my weaknesses?  Can they share my weaknesses with me so I can get better?  Why are they still talking to each other when they’re down 6-0, 3-0?  What could they possibly be strategizing about when we all know who’s going to win this match?  Must they talk after every point?  How have they not run out of tennis things to say to each other?  Is it a bad thing that my partner and I don’t talk?  Is it all for show?  Is a team who talks after every point really that more in sync with each other than teams who don’t?

Do I lose in doubles because of my inability to play doubles or because I don’t talk to my partners?! Read the rest of this entry »

Tennis is a game played with four people on the court.  That’s how it started.  The court is divided naturally into four quadrants.  Each person mans a quadrant.  The goal is to protect your quadrant from the evil fluffy neon green/yellow ball.  This game is known as doubles. Read the rest of this entry »