Taking Weekend Tennis Seriously

Captaining USTA tennis teams drains the life force out of me. A little part of my soul dies every second I spend on captaining. It is exhausting. I would never advise anyone to captain a recreational adult tennis team. It sucks. In so many ways.

My dog likes to circle behind me as I’m making my way around the house when she thinks we’re about to go on a road trip. I think it’s the herding mentality in her Sheltie DNA; she’s making sure she has me in her sights at all times and that I’m on the right path and not straying from the plan.

“Nope! You are not going back up the stairs, Christy, because I will block you from turning around! All forty pounds of me. That tops off at your knees. When I sit.

“Darn the construction limitations of my dog-body!”

Captaining a team is like herding. Constantly, constantly, constantly herding. Sometimes it seems like I’m the only person in a face-to-face interaction that remembers the part where I asked you about playing on this team next spring season and you said yes. And then a few months later when I blithely check in as a simple formality, you don’t have any recollection of that conversation and have joined another team.

See, a great captain would have had all these player-tennis team commitments set in stone, signed in blood complete with monthly reminders. I merely, haplessly continue to play this violin as the boat is sinking.

Read the rest of this entry »

There’s some angst among my area’s USTA tennis players and captains about this weekend’s playoff tournament because rain is in the forecast and the local league office decided that they still wanted to get the City Championship in and done with. They’re getting ahead of the weather and now all matches will be played indoors. There wouldn’t be a better weekend the rest of the year than Nov. 21-23, the Dallas Tennis Association officials reckoned, to fit in a tennis tournament of this size and magnitude that involves, no doubt, a ton of moving parts and logistics.

Here’s where it gets good though: due to the limited availability of indoor tennis courts, the powers that be made the playoff pool smaller and removed all the second place teams from advancing.

GASP.

😯

Read the rest of this entry »

• One of my high school teachers said that to purposefully get every question wrong on a multiple choice exam was harder than it seemed. If anyone pulled off the feat, he would give that student a 100. This challenge created a bit of a buzz in the classroom, but of course, no one took him up on it.

For whatever reason, that memory surfaced recently, and now I’m tempted to see if I can manipulate my line-ups so that my oblivious team will lose every line, every match.

Obviously, the first step in losing every line, every match would be to not play me, um… 😉

Read the rest of this entry »

There’s nothing more fun than after you’ve played doubles with and against someone you’ve never met before in the same round-robin setting and she asks you afterwards, “Are you a 4.0?” and you have to sheepishly say, “I’m a 4.5.”

Listen up, dear reader. You should always guess too high. Whatever rating you think they really are, guess the next rating up. And then deftly hide your surprise when she proudly says, “Why, yes, I am!”

It’s really not people’s fault though for incorrectly pegging players’ ratings. The USTA NTRP Rating System doesn’t always seem to make sense…

You know what being a 4.5 means? Being a 4.5 means I know 4.5s who are the real deal 4.5s. Like, I can text those living, breathing, for-real-ing 4.5s and they will totally respond. Eventually.

Being a 4.5 means I know those 4.5s and some of them will actually partner up with me should I ever get challenged to a 4.5 or below doubles tennis match. Oh, so you think you’re better at me in tennis because you beat me and this partner that I am now disowning in doubles? Hey, you know what? How about we play again, but this time I get to bring my real partner? Huh? Huh-huh?? HOW DO YOU LIKE THEM APPLES.

Yeah, so I’m not playing well right now.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve got to start making a practice of clearing out the rest of my day after a tennis match.

If history holds, I will lose the match and then I am pretty much useless as a productive member of society for that day. I will spend what’s left of my waking seconds to do everything I can to cleanse myself of the stink of inadequacy off of me be it texting everyone in my little black tennis book for a pick-up match (by the way, here’s a tip: you should start off your text to me when you need a last second 4^th with “Hey, Christy, did you lose today? Do you want to play tennis right now?”) and/or hitting the ball machine.

I hit a lot of ball machine. I hit the ball machine more than you play tennis, fellow adult recreational tennis player. That’s just a fact.

That’s how much I lose at tennis.

Clearly, the ball machine is not helping you, Christy, um…

Read the rest of this entry »

My doubles partner is trying to tell me about one of the opponents we’re about to play. Like how just crazy, ridiculously awesome she is. I’m listening but I’m texting on my phone – because I’m just such a big deal…and a pompous a– – –  and I’m cockily dismissing everything she’s saying without even looking up. I’m feeling pretty great about tennis right now, and in my current arrogant faze, there is no one I can’t handle.

And then I warm up with the crazy, ridiculously awesome one.

Oh.

My.

Gosh.

Read the rest of this entry »

As a captain of recreational adult tennis teams, I am obligated to do something called “research.” Players will say something like “I trust my captain to do the proper research, put out the right line-up, and lead our team to first place.”

Sometimes my teams will do quite well and the players will credit me for doing a terrific job of this thing called “research.”

Sometimes I will tell my team, “Okay, let me do some research and crunch some numbers, and I’ll get back to you all on the line-up as soon as I can.”

Can I tell you a secret? I have no idea what doing “research” entails.

I say I do research just cause it sounds like something I should be doing. Like I’m not just throwing spaghetti against a wall and seeing which strands of noodles and meatballs win their three-set coin flips. Then when one of those coin flip wins turn out to be the deciding match, I end up looking like a mad genius with amazing captaining prowess who did an excellent job of “researching.”

Maybe I’m doing it wrong. For me, doing “research” means mindlessly clicking through the faceless names on the opposing team and glancing at meaningless scores against more names I don’t recognize. For hours.

This is what I do instead of finding a cure for cancer.

Read the rest of this entry »

As I’m sure is the case in your area, my area has non-USTA, cities-spanning leagues with a flight-ladder system to pass the time in between USTA seasons. Finish last and your tennis team moves down a flight. Finish first or even second and your tennis team moves up a flight.

With one last week of matches to go in such a league, one of the tennis teams I play on will for sure-for sure be finishing first in its flight this season.

“HAHA, SUCKERS!”

Is what the rest of the flight is thinking.

You know what’s going to happen after we finish first? We will be moving up next season. To the highest flight in the league. Where there are former college players and 5.0s running amok. Laughing. Smirking. Drop-shotting.

We did not think this one through.

I’m convinced opposing teams purposefully gave points away so they wouldn’t finish first. It looked pretty dicey there in the middle part of the season when all the teams were bunched up, but a few weeks of the other captains “selflessly” letting everyone play and coincidentally making those players drive an hour across major highways to play the team I’m on and whaddaya know. Those opposing teams are safely not in first place now.

We are. Sigh.

Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s the best part about being the captain of a 4.5 USTA team: after playing a non-USTA team tennis league match against strangers who were well on their way to steamrolling my behind before my partner stepped in, placed me on her back while I’m kicking and screaming, and dragged both of us across the finish line to victory, I will, of course, ask those opponents, “Would you be interested in playing on my USTA team?”

Their response: “I’m a 4.5…um…is this a 4.5 team?”

That’s fun. Tennis is fun. Everyone should experience how much fun tennis is.

Speaking of which, I am actually captaining a 4.0 USTA team in addition to the 4.5 one this summer.

*Music screeches to a halt*

What?

No. No, I can’t play on the team. I mean, not this summer, anyway. When mid-year ratings come out though, I should be…

Yes, that’s right. I’m just captaining a tennis team…that I can’t play on.

What? Is that, like, not a usual thing people do or something? Huh. Oh! So sorry for my rudeness. We haven’t been properly introduced, yet…

Hi, I’m Christy!

Read the rest of this entry »

Remember when something weird happened with my knee back in August? Welp, guess what? I tore my anterior cruciate ligament.

Yes. That’s right. I tore my ACL.

For whatever reason, I can still play tennis. I mean, come on. It’s gotta be a pretty, pretty darn big deal for me not to play tennis, amirightoramiright?

What? Is tearing one’s ACL a big deal or something?

Remarkably, I’ve never had to stop playing tennis in all that time. The only thing that would happen is once a tennis outing, I would twist on my knee oddly and experience sharp pain. After taking a minute to walk it out, I would go right back to playing without any more incident the remainder of the match.

I don’t know how I’m still able to play tennis while other people aren’t as fortunate after ACL tears – my sister has admonished me about continuing to play so much, something about adrenaline numbing the pain…except there is no pain, I promise! – but I’ll probably end up tearing something else knee-related and will definitely need to have surgery then so it’s really all the same in the end. Is how the logic goes in my head.

To prolong the time till the inevitable knee explosion, I am now wearing a custom-fitted knee brace.

WHOOOOOOOOOOOO-HOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Read the rest of this entry »