When Recreation becomes Stressful (rant)

Played tennis again today. Kicked butt again. Felt my fitness and strength pay off again. And was stressed out again.

Here's the scenario: our "sister team" was short of a girl, so my (stand-in) team captain volunteers to play as a reserve for them. The hook is, we're playing each other. Worse still, we're in the final round-robin round before the final play-offs, and we wanna ensure ourselves the second seed while helping the other team actually qualify for the semifinals.

Now, my team captain is one of those women who wories all the time about what other people think, about doing the right thing etc. So she asks me, should I play for this other team? What if we lose and come in third? So I say, we've always had the agreement to help each other out (although it's usually us doing the helping out), plus there's no way we'll lose this even with her playing. They're lucky if they'd get a single set off us with their own team members playing.

We know that we only need a few sets to get the points that we need, so our boys muck around in the first match and lose that. So my team captain gets a little more worried and nervous. Up comes the first women's match and my partner (whom I'm meeting for the first time) struggles, and my team captain starts getting paranoid. So what does she do? She starts throwing the match. So on the changeover, I say to her, "Just play your game. We'll be alright, we just need to get into the groove." And she continues to throw the game.

Now, her partner (we'll call her Y) doesn't say anything, and once we get off court, we sit around talking about how many points we'll need to ensure the seeding and how many points our sister team will need to ensure that they qualify. There are 13 points to go around - conveniently, we need 3 and they need 10. So we decide to split the points that way, and play the matches as normal but to report "fake" scores on the scoresheet. The next thing I know, Y is on court bitching about how she can't play against people with no morals and that if the scores were decided, we shouldn't have to play the matches.

So I get pissed off. I asked her what the problem was, and she says "nothing" in a pissy way. I go, "No, if there's a problem, we'll have to sort it out," because I'm pissed at the way she's acting especially considering that we were going to give them the overall win and all the points they needed (lowering my own stats and team's performance evaluation). She says, "I don't have to say anything. It's obvious enough what's going on." So I lose it, grab my bag and walk over to the other court where they're finishing up the other mixed doubles. And all hell breaks loose.

In short, she accuses us of having our team captain fill in for the team so that we can manipulate the score. This angers me and I ask if they have anyone else that could have played, as well as if they think that we'd discussed this and sent someone in to throw the match on purpose. Then Y's teammate gets angry, yelling at me that "we're not accusing you of anything!" which in turn makes me get up (Y's crying and sitting down and I was sitting down next to her), look him square in the eyes and say, "Don't you raise your voice at me," all steely-eyed Clint Eastwood-y.

By now everyone's standing around, and Y says, "So you guys think you're so great, that you would have won this [for sure]" and I say "Of course. Are you kidding me?" because I can't believe that these people think that they stood a chance against us. We've never lost any set we didn't want to against these people (yeah, guess how many times we've helped them qualify for the playoffs), and the only reason my team missed out on being promoted into the top grade last year was because of a rain-out.

Man am I pissed off. Not only was this anger directed at me while I'd encouraged my captain to not throw the match, but these hacks think that they're good players! It's not the first time I've seen this, but it makes me sick how some people think they're great at tennis when they'd be considered a social player at best. And before you point your finger at me, I'm a tennis thoroughbred and been through my paces, so yes, I am that good. My only problem in the past 4 years has been my fitness, and even then I was among the top picks in the damn area. My performance since coming back into the comp a few weeks ago should have been proof enough that I'm back in the groove, and still these people have the guts to mouth off like that.

My teammates worked to calm things down, although the conflict still wasn't resolved, they agree to finish the final 2 sets. Me and my partner were down 0-1 in our match, and despite a cut on my small finger and a deep gash on my forearm (clumsy me wasn't paying attention and gashed my arm on a metal plate on the fence at the end of the court area where I was sitting with my other 2 teammates while things were being sorted out) that was bleeding like mad and definitely needed stitches (we held it together with a few band-aids), we walked calmly out on court, played as non-aggressively as humanly possible and won 6 games in a row to take it 6-1.

So yeah. I hate that. I play in this stupid comp for some recreation and to meet up with friends, and this happens. Of course, my captain shouldn't have thrown her first match, but you'd think that people would be able to just take the handout we're giving to them and not bitch around on court. Right now, I'm hoping that they actually get into the final by some miracle just so that we can kick their arses in that.

While I'm at it, here are some other things that come to mind when I think of getting aggravated on court:

10. People who walk around (or worse yet, stand around juggling balls) behind the fence at the back of the court while a point is being played. How can I keep track of my opponents while keeping my eye on the ball when you're standing 2 metres away from them!

9. People who hold 2 balls while they're serving, and throw the second ball behind them if their first serve goes in. It's against the rules, it's dangerous, and it's bloody annoying. Get a fucking ball holder or some shorts with pockets.

8. People who don't call faults out loud, because you either let the ball go (not realising that the idiot on the other side of the net has called your serve that's a foot out, in) and lose the point, or othwise not only waste energy returning a dead ball, but losing your rhythm for the second serve.

7. Guys who use their women opponents for target practice in social mixed doubles. Look, just put the damn overhead away. You don't have to smack it right at the lady at net. I'll take them myself, no qualms at all, but it annoys me when they pick on the weaker/older women who definitely don't have the reflexes to get their racquet on the ball and don't always know to get out of the way.

6. People who should be passing you the ball but just hit it God knows where, just as long as it's on the other side of the court.

5. People who call my serves wide when they land right on the centre line. I swear 40% of my aces have been discounted this way.

4. People who call the lines when they're in no position to do so. No, you can't call my serve wide when you're standing at the net on the other side of the court, moron!

3. People who don't know the rules and yet want to argue the validity of their action. Once, in a mixed doubles match, this lady hit the ball twice with her racquet, and it obviously wasn't with one motion because she has an awkward forehand in which the racquet follows through in two parts. I call it, the point ends, and her partner says, no it's their point. I point out that her racquet didn't move in one motion, which she starts to deny. And then the guy says, "she didn't hit the ball twice." So I say, "You were standing in front of her, facing me at the net. You wanna tell me that she didn't hit the ball twice?" And you know what this guy has the balls to say to me? "I heard it." He's lucky I didn't smack the next overhead I had right in the middle of his back.

2. People who intentionally give bad line calls to the point of being notorious for doing so.

1. Hacks that yell, "Come on!" and do that damn Wilander (now adopted by Hewitt) non-fist pump after every point they win. Even when their opponent just double-faulted. Asshat.

Posted in rant