Taking Weekend Tennis Seriously

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.

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The USTA Combo Tournament was underway this weekend for my area (and will take place next weekend for the area an hour from here – Hi, Fort Worth!). I didn’t play in it, which confirms my suspicions that if I didn’t captain a USTA team, I would never get to play USTA tennis.

I’m playin’ with ya. I’m honestly relieved that my reputation for captaining teams and needing to micromanage precedes me and people automatically assume I’m putting together a team and don’t ask me to play on theirs. Yes, that’s it, Christy. Keep telling yourself that. 😉

I have never quite understood the Combo Tournament.

Someone sadistically thought it would be an excellent idea to pair up two people of different ratings to play another pairing of the same different ratings. Three lines for each team match and voilà. The Combo Tournament!

Obviously, this someone was the lower rated player in his/her Combo doubles partnership.

I have been on teams in which I was not good enough to play with certain teammates, but of course, the only person who didn’t know I wasn’t good enough was me. If I had known at the time that I could have just shrewdly entered into this tournament to pair up with these too-good-to-partner-up-with-under-normal-circumstances players, I would have been ALL over this.

Did I describe the person who thought of this concept as sadistic? There’s a part of me that would like to change the term to genius. Total genius.

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One of the supposed perks of being a captain is that you can choose who you want to play doubles with, which would imply that whomever I deign as deserving as being on the same court as myself is probably one of the best players on the team. Captains are not totally stupid. Well actually, a captain’s partner might be one of the worst players or one of the least enjoyable people to play with, and the captain is taking (yet another) one for the team.

For the record, I’m not totally stupid.

I do have players on my team that I very much would like to play doubles with, people I wouldn’t otherwise play doubles with in a real match (which kills me because what is the point of playing tennis if it’s not recorded anywhere for opposing captains to gaze at and go “Ooh, who is Christy’s partner?”) because this is the only tennis team we’re on together.

So this is perfect, right? I captain a tennis team comprised of people I want to play doubles with and whatdoyaknow I’m in charge of the line-up and it’s the most awesome power in the world. Nay, the universe. That’s how that works, right?

There are three cities-spanning team tennis leagues for women in my area. There are three leagues I could have possibly captained a team in. Being the brilliant person that I am, I captain a team in the one league that requires singles. I am a moron.

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I stumbled upon this D Magazine feature article on TCD (a non-USTA, cities-spanning, flight-ladder league in my area) from 1999. Some of the words/letters didn’t quite make it in the digital transition, but otherwise…yup. Yup, yup. Exactly.

On to the actual post:

You do not want to be my doubles partner. I wrote within the first month of starting this blog about the things I do / don’t do that annoy my doubles partners. Well, over the course of two years, I have accumulated even more evidence of my special talent for alienating people from wanting to play with me. I am awesome.

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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…

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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!!!!!!

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Whoo-hoo, tennis is back, ba-by! The two non-USTA cities-spanning team tennis doubles leagues in my area start this week: TCD today and Metro this Saturday. But it’s TCD that holds a special place in my heart – it’s the league in which flocks of grown-up women recreational tennis players will be flouncing to their respective tennis match sites all uniformly decked out as a team in whatever tennis apparel the major sportswear corporations convinced them was the absolute latest in tennis fashion.

Basically those corporations mixed and matched any two colors together with the sole criteria being: the louder the better. They’re no dummies. They know their core audience.

And so I present to you my second post (here’s the first) centered around that one tennis must-have that adult women tennis teams have been working oh-so-hard to get just right this off-season. I am shocked it’s not the serve.

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