Tennis Brats

Some of you know how reluctantly I signed up for USTA summer league this season. (For those of you who didn't know, sorry if it shocks you that I wasn't as excited about the upcoming season as I tried to pretend.)

I had many reasons for feeling apprehensive. I didn't have a great season the year before. I was yelled at by opponents for winning (I kid you not), criticized by teammates for hitting "too hard", and my name came up in a backwards complimentary way at league meetings in the context of "Hell no, I don't want to play her, anymore." I was tired of the John McEnroe-egos that were synonymous with adult league; players who'd picked up the racquet 10 years ago as an adult, never made it past flight play but new the rules of tennis based on their experienced and whatever meltdown they witnessed on the pro tour.

Late last summer, I took some time off. Not from training and hitting, but from competing against other league adults. I went to clinics. I hit with training partners. I hit the gym. I played a tournament in October, something I always enjoyed doing, but was nervous because I hadn't played competitively in a couple of months (if I'm honest, I hadn't played a competitive match since my last tournament almost ten months prior). But I wanted to play in an environment where I could just play my game and not have to listen to the criticism.

In the final round, I got to play a friend and my fourteen year old doubles partner from Chicago, the great Ty Ana Williams. I was looking forward to getting my clocked cleaned by her. The first time I played her, she was twelve and she beat me 0 and 1. The second time she beat me 0 and 2. Then, with us playing so many tournaments together, I did not run into her in any draw for two years. I knew since she'd turned 14 she was training even harder and attending elite camps and playing in the ITF tour. I knew she'd grown and gotten stronger and I was just excited to play and hit the ball. I lost 5 and 4 and played some of the most amazing tennis of my life.

So, I made a decision not to play league anymore. I was convince USTA league tennis was detrimental to both my game and my mental stability.

But then my friends asked me to play. And I told myself that with the USTA changing the format of leagues for 2013, I may only have this opportunity to play with my friends in the summer considering a lot of my teammates are old enough to play in the 40-over league and I think that a lot of them will choose to play there.

So, I put on a brave face and readied myself for the first match.

And I played HORRIBLY!

But I won.

And the second match...

I played HORRIBLY.

But I won.

I was not myself on the court. I was agitated and angry and disgusted with my play and not having fun and pushing the ball and not moving my feet and, well, the list goes on... I was the portrait of 'What Not To Do On a Tennis Court'. And I couldn't figure out why. I couldn't figure out how I'd lost my rhythm. I got on the ball machine and thought I'd worked out the problem. But the next match back was the same crappy hitting and bad attitude. I went to match play and had the most awesome round with a current college player, losing only in a tiebreaker. But the next league match I played, I struggled to take it to a tiebreaker and then barely won.

I couldn't figure it out until I hit with one of my favorite guy hitting partners and I talked to him about my 14-2 record. I told him the dumb crap I'd been dealing with from some of my opponents and then it hit me. I was letting those things bother me. Before one of my first matches when my opponent informed me that she didn't want me holding the third ball (I wasn't going to anyway) because "women where skirts so you know where the ball goes", I found myself agitated before the match even started. And when another opponent spun her racquet one revolution and declared me the loser of the toss, then refused to re-spin, leading to a five minute pre-match argument, I was so mad during the first set, I think I hit every single ball right at her head.

Then there were the out calls. On my serve, which normally I would shake off. I am a firm believer that it is your call to make and I respect my opponents calls... Even when they are wrong. But this year, it ANNOYED me. Especially the ones that were not called until my opponent had mulled it over for a few minutes and then declared, "You know what? That ball was out."

And there was the guy who complained throughout a mixed doubles match that he doesn't know why he loses all the time at this level when he plays so well at the upper level. The same man then, a month later, stood mute on a court and watched as his 19-year old partner when psycho on a teammate of mine over a let call.

Or that man's teammate who chased my teammate, a lady who would make Ms. Manners look Larry the Cable Guy, from the club where the match was held.

There were the guys who came onto adjacent courts as a women's match was finishing up and then proceeded to argue with the women about turning the fans back on. One of the competitive guys even told one of the women to shut up. I guess that was him getting his game face on.

There were the guys who started warming up on a court next to me for a match and every time the ball came onto my court, they would follow it and pick it up as though we weren't even playing.

There was the lady on an adjacent court to me who every time I hit the ball would have a comment, "Jeez Maxine, why don't you hit the ball a little harder?" Or, "Maxine, does every overhead have to be smashed over the netting?" (Um, Nosy Lady, don't you have a match to attend to on your own court? Or, Busy Body, Jeez. Do you have to push the ball that slow every time you hit?)

There was the opponent who decided to take 5 minutes on the changeovers.

And the one who disappeared for ten minutes between sets.

And the lady who hit me twice with the ball, but then acted like she needed a medical timeout when I hit her. And who then proceeded for the rest of the match to treat me like I was some kind of wild animal that should be observed only from a safe distance. (I have to be honest, that one kind of made me smile on the inside.) But the same lady got nailed in the back by her partner's serve and simply played on like it was a routine play with them. I have to tell you, I'd be way more upset about getting hit in the back than I would be about seeing the ball coming where I would at least have a chance to react and MOVE!

And every time things like that happened, I thought to myself, "This is the very reason why I didn't want to be here."

In the past, I've often thought that women didn't know how to be competitive, that they mistake meanness and an adjective that starts with a b with competitiveness. But I've played tourneys were women aren't like that and I've played mxd this where the men thing that being nasty is competitive and it just doesn't make sense that there is all this drama for a sport that is supposed to be a gentleperson's sport.

I maintain that it is because in tennis, we are calling our own lines. There's something to be said for playing on the honor system and then finding out that few people have any. Imagine if in softball the team on defense was allowed to say, "You know what? That HR over the centerfielder's head was foul."

And I am overly sensitive about it. I love my hockey mates because it's stuff like I described above that makes for good laughs in the locker room after the game. Its stuff like I described above that requires no less than a dozen reenactments, each one becoming more and more absurd until there's not one person in the locker room not suffering from some degree of laugh cramps. We laugh until bratty behavior becomes a perfected cocktail story, one that we will tell after every late night game and every team party.

But tennis, sometimes solitary and sometimes lonely, is what it is. And stories about the tennis brats I come across are most times witnessed only by me.

I find myself playoff-bound with my team this weekend, hoping for good things and good times and, importantly, good play.

Stay tuned...
KS