Taking Weekend Tennis Seriously

I hate the cold.

I hate the cold so much.

I live in Texas. I live in Texas where any hint of cold makes people think the world is about to be sucked into a black hole and all of society is nearing its end and RUN FOR YOUR LIVES, PEOPLE.

I’m not the person who gets her skirt all up in a tizzy and says no to tennis because it’s too cold. I’m the person who doesn’t get to play tennis because everyone else gets their skirts all up in a tizzy because it’s too cold.

The too-cold-to-play-tennis conversation always goes the same way, too:

The World: “Hey, do you guys think it’s too cold to play? Should we reschedule?”

Me: “No, I don’t think it’s too cold to play. Smiley face.”

The World: “Well, I think it’s too cold to play. Let’s reschedule.”

I don’t know why I even bother…

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All the world’s a stage / And all the men and women merely players

– William Shakespeare’s As You Like It

There’s a moment – a real, specific instance – at some point in your life in which you realize the USTA rating system aka the National Tennis Rating Program (NTRP) makes no sense.

You look up someone’s rating at the end of the year, let’s say, and you see what their rating is, and your jaw drops; you shake your head at the injustice of it all; and you feel sick to your stomach for that person because that number staring back at you next to that person’s name is the SILLIEST thing you’ve ever beholden.

That’s the moment.

Or my favorite: you look up someone’s rating at the end of the year just for giggles, and you see what their rating is, and there’s a beat in time to allow your eyes to adjust/do a double-take and for your brain to digest the number staring back at you next to that person’s name and then…the next thing you know you’re rolling on the ground laughing your a—off because that is the SILLIEST thing you’ve ever beholden.

That’s the moment.

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USTA’s year-end ratings come out on Monday, December 2nd. I’ll find out whether I’ll have to play 4.5 for 2014 Spring USTA, or whether I’ll be able to compete at the 4.0 rating for next year’s Tri-Level Tournament. 😉

I don’t know what my 2014 tennis fate will be. I don’t understand the USTA rating system, and I haven’t done the research I probably should as a weekend tennis crazy (and if I ever start my research, I’ll be sure to check out what one of my commenters, Clif Render, wrote about it at his blog).

I batted .500 for 2014 4.5 Fall USTA. I played people who were rated 4.5s. I won. I lost. I went to lunch.

But where were my opponents on the spectrum of 4.5 rating land: low, medium, or high? Did I beat the right kind of 4.5s? Did I win enough games? Blahblahblah, it’s all very silly.

Do I still get to be the 4.0 in the upcoming USTA Combo Tournament and have a chance of avenging my loss in the area 7.5 finals? That’s mostly what I’m anxious to find out.

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I was mentally fried for at least a week from the Tri-Level Tournament two weekends ago. It was the weirdest feeling. I couldn’t even look my racquet in its face is how tired I was of tennis.

Ruh-roh.

It took till this past Saturday before I started recovering. USTA Fall Play-offs were going on that same weekend, and I don’t think I would have been able to play and do well in another high-stressed atmosphere so soon had my team been in it. I guess I didn’t understand just what I was in for that fateful tournament weekend, which turned out to involve playing very big deal, high-level tennis matches back-to-back-to-back, and so I didn’t take the appropriate steps afterwards. Of course, I’m going to blame the system for not preparing me adequately enough for such an experience.

An aside: I only had two 4.5s on my Tri-Level team, and they had to play back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back. They won all their matches except the last one. They are amazing. But I’m going to persevere and continue on with my woe-is-me post, anyway.

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My USTA Tri-Level tennis team finished 2^nd in the area tournament last weekend. It’s the single greatest thing in the universe that has ever happened to me*. I think I’m supposed to add “tennis-wise” to the end of that sentence. Oh, well.

*Happened to me – as in lucking out with having awesome players who played and won while I sat in my cozy chair and sipped on grapes.

On Tuesday, the powers that be emailed out to everyone a congratulatory note that listed all the winners and runner-ups. I was stoked. The names of all the fearsome Grand Wizards in my area decorated that document. And then there was my name right alongside those luminaries. I couldn’t help but grin from ear to ear when I saw it.

I got all ready to print the email out so I could put it on a plaque and hang it in my Weekend Tennis shrine when I spotted it.

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Tri-Level is this weekend for my area. Tri-Level is a USTA team tennis tournament in which three lines of three different rated doubles teams (for example: 4.5/4.0/3.5 or 4.0-3.5-3.0) play each head-to-head match. Win at least two of those lines, and your team has won that match-up and on your merry way you go to the next one.

The idea behind the tournament, I believe, is to allow tennis friends across rating levels to be on the same USTA team for once and to compete together in this fun-with-racquets game we lovingly call tennis.

That’s the technical definition.

Here’s the underlying definition. Tri-Level is a team tennis tournament in which captains craft their rosters by grabbing and hoarding the bestest players of each rating level they can find. The recruiting call/text/email could be the first time the captains and the differently rated players have ever had correspondence.

Tri-Level uses the year-end ratings from the previous year, and the tournament itself generally occurs late the next calendar year. Boy does a lot happen in a year. So for this weekend’s tournament in November of 2013, what the computer said you were rated at the end of 2012 is the minimum* level you can play at.

*Players can always play up, but having people play up at Tri-Level would be…unconventional, as you’ll see, and goes against the unwritten spirit of the tournament.

Unwritten, that is, until now. 🙂

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Tennis is hard.

Tennis is so flippity hard.

Nearly every time I play tennis, I’m rudely awoken by a shot I’ve never seen before. Wait, that exists? You can do that with the ball? I’m still trying to learn how to hit a groundstroke that’ll go over the net and into the court. Hopefully, deep. That’s where I’m at. That’s where I’ve been at for the last few years. And now you’re telling me you can hit the ball like that and it’ll land like this and then…spin in a circle and shoot straight up into the air never to be seen again??

Mind. Blown.

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House Sitting Adventures: The dogs are pawing at the space in between the floor and the cabinet. There’s something stuck underneath. I get down and lie on the floor to see what all the fuss is about and pull out an Angry Birds chew toy. Still on my belly, I throw the toy over yonder to oblige the anxious, panting dogs and then immediately realize my fatal mistake: “You’re about to be stampeded and trampled on like Mufasa was by the antelopes in The Lion King!”

Thankfully, the thundering 25 lb cocker spaniels have the good sense to run around me in their mad chase to the toy, and by the time I’ve recovered from seeing my life flash before my eyes and have righted myself, the six dogs are once more beside me, tails wagging, toy dropped, ready for me to throw Angry Bird again.

I think a lot about why people play tennis. Because I often don’t understand why I play tennis. Why do people think tennis is fun when it brings so much…frustration? Is it the complaining? Is that the part that’s fun? That’s gotta be it. With how much complaining that goes on in weekend tennis, that makes the most sense. The actual tennis itself is secondary.

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House sitting adventures: I’m house sitting cats. These cats are free to come and go as they please as they have a pet door in the back of the house. Usually, however, these cats will wait for me to hold the door open for them before coming in. Well, no, I take that back. They’ll wait for me to hold the door open for them; I’ll oblige; and then they’ll stop a foot from the door and survey me uncertainly. Now I have to coax them to come in and try to convince them that I’m not scary (it’s my first time pet sitting for these cats so we’re just getting used to each other). I’ll spend a minute just standing there, holding the door open as still as I can because any creak will scare them away, and talk to the cats as if I were a part of the FBI Crisis Negotiation Unit. After the cats have either scurried inside or scampered away, I’ll look up, and of course, there’s a neighbor watching me. I leave her so she can laugh openly at this display of human-animal deference also known as the crazy lady talking to cats.

I met with a house/pet sitting client the other day, and as is the case with most of my clients, the wife plays tennis and the husband does not. He could not stop poking fun at the irrational tennis culture his wife and I are a part of.

“What is with you tennis players and your addiction to the game? An orthopedic friend was telling me how a guy with a broken leg was trying to figure out how to keep playing tennis. I mean, you’re not going to keep playing tennis; you have a broken leg!”

Let me try to explain the sickness.

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• The Real Housewives of Tennis: this delightful blog post about the weekend tennis scene in Nashville and its effect on unsuspecting domestic engineers and 401K-compensated women proves it’s not all just in my head. However, I am unclear on the whole “lunch that the other team brings” bit. What’s this about lunch being provided? And here I am getting all giddy when my team plays at country clubs that have complimentary Goldfish…
• Wouldn’t it be awesome if we had a Take Your Dog to Tennis Day? An actual thought I had when I brought my dog to a match I was playing. What a silly idea, right? Tennis balls flying everywhere and people running around willy-nilly: yeah, there is no way most dogs would sit nicely during all this delicious movement. Had there been other dogs at the tennis facility in honor of Take Your Dog to Tennis Day, my dog would have barked incessantly instead of being bored out of her mind.
• If your dog was watching you play tennis, do you think he/she would say, “Wow, she never moves that fast in real life” or “Yup, that dawdling looks about right”?

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