Taking Weekend Tennis Seriously

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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Of the many tennis shots I don’t have, hitting a forehand groundstroke isn’t one of them. I like to think of this next line delivered in Uncle Rico’s voice from Napoleon Dynamite: I can whip a forehand groundstroke winner on you from just about anywhere on the court.

Well, I’ll try, anyway. And trying’s half the battle! So that’s a 50% chance I’ll hit a winner and a 50% chance I won’t. I like these chances. And the logic.

My opponent loves those chances, too, by the way.

When I was an up-and-coming weekend warrior adult tennis player, the scouting report on me was to hit to my backhand – stay the heck away from my forehand. In fact, I know of at least one tennis friend who told another tennis friend to do this before playing me a couple of years ago. Have I forgotten about this violation of trust? Actually, I did. Until I started writing this blog post. And now I just remembered that I’m not happy with you, you supposed tennis friend. As soon as USTA is over and I don’t need you to win tennis matches for me so I can feel good about myself, I’m not going to talk to you for a whole week.

Hah! That’ll show you. It’s not like you’ll be relieved about not being bugged about yet another inane tennis thing for one glorious, peaceful week or anything.

Anyway, I’m here to tell you to throw that scouting report out the window. Don’t worry about not hitting to my forehand now. My forehand can’t kill you anymore. It can’t even hit the ball.

I have the blasted forehand groundstroke yips.

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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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The time has come to talk about the warm-up. The tennis warm-up (called a “knock-up” in Great Britain, #nowyaknow) is the short, polite hitting back and forth from player to player before the start of matches or lessons in order to, you know, warm up one’s muscles. It generally begins with each player a few feet away from the net bopping the ball to each other. Here are the attitudes of the various USTA levels towards this supposedly polite exchange.*

*I don’t say this often, and I’m not going to put this disclaimer before every post so listen up: I am clearly exaggerating throughout this post. And this blog. And yet not exaggerating all at the same time. Welcome to my blog. Thank you for reading!

3.0s – Just happy to be playing. Hoping to make contact with the ball (that feeling doesn’t go away when you’re a 4.0, by the way). Thrilled as long as the ball goes over the net and inside the lines.

3.5s – Can make solid contact with the ball. Sorta. Super, super excited that they can routinely make contact. Now trying out this power thing they’ve heard so much about.

4.0s – Can hit the ball solidly with power. Feel like they must wail on everything with all their might. It’s like they’ve discovered fire, and now they’re setting ablaze everything in sight with this crazy glint in their eyes.

4.5s – Control. So much awesome, beautiful, tranquil control. Can get nearly any ball wildly hit at them back and almost perfectly teed up for their hitting partner.

5.0s – Please. Like I have any idea how 5.0s warm up. I imagine it would be just heavenly though. With angels singing.

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This is a time capsule post, in which a year or two or five or ten years from now, I’ll look back at this person, shake my head side to side slowly with a wry grin and a knowing look on my face, and chuckle out, “Oh, honey.” Like you are about to.

Someday I’m going to be a more understanding person. I’m sincerely working on that. But before I’m lobotomized by society and I’ve stopped being the wildly entertaining person that I am right now, I’ll keep churning out these simply delightful posts in the meantime. I hope that’s okay with everyone.

Now I relate to this movie.

I don’t look forward to being older.

I don’t look forward to not playing tennis because it’s below 50 degrees. Because there’s such a thing as too. cold.

I don’t look forward to not playing at certain times because it’s too early, too hot, or too late.

I don’t look forward to not playing because it’s too windy.

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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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