An engineer overthinks tennis in a daily journal.
The October challenge for the USTA Tennis Champions program was to distribute flyers promoting tennis. Harkening back to my own days as a youth soccer coach and parent, there were many days when I stumbled off the pitch emotionally primed to embrace the virtues of an individual sport. As the Fall soccer season comes to a close, the time is right to distribute some flyers to encourage youth soccer players to give tennis a try.
Yesterday I wrote about how the USTA foists regular duty tennis balls on female tournament players. The next obvious question is when and why the policy started in the first place. It is a sordid tale of how tennis is a victim of the forces of technology and marketing. It is also a testament that complaining about the balls is an indelible part of the culture of tennis.
On the hard courts of Texas, bringing a can of regular duty tennis balls to a match is the epitome of poor taste. It simply isn’t done. The felt used for regular duty tennis balls doesn’t hold up to the wear and tear of play on an outdoor hard court. Consequently, I was surprised that regular duty balls were in use when I played the National Senior Women’s Hard Court Championships in Mission Hills, California earlier this month. I assumed that the selection was driven by necessity due to the the ongoing tennis ball shortage. As it turns out, the culprit is USTA policy.
3 responses
A few weeks ago I competed at the USTA Level 1 National Clay Court Women’s Championships in Houston. My adult daughter that played junior tennis currently lives in Houston. She came out to watch some of my matches on her off days from work. After missing my third swinging volley during one of my singles matches, I loudly exclaimed “Can someone please write down that I need to work on that?!?!?!” She was on the spot to record that fact for me. Additionally, that statement was interpreted as an open invitation for additional observations regarding my play.
During one of my daughter’s junior tournaments another parent treated me to a diatribe on how the opponent’s parents were using hand signals to provide coaching during her daughter’s match. Watching the events unfold on the adjacent court, I was unconvinced that hand signals were in play. Unfortunately, the story doesn’t end there.
1 response
Brad Gilbert was once ejected from a junior tournament during one of his son’s matches. Zack’s opponent that day was one of those unusual players with a relatively weak forehand. Somehow his son failed to notice that tactical opportunity. Gilbert couldn’t control his impulse to signal his son to hit more balls to that side of the court. Failing to convey the message, Gilbert resorted to an increasingly intense series of gestures. He was busted by the roving umpire and ejected from the match.
In 2018, former professional tennis player John-Laffnie de Jager challenged every sportsman and sportswomen around the world to shake their opponent’s hand both before and after every competition. His theory is that the physical act conveys a sense of mutual respect. That, in turn, should bring out the best of the athletes from both a performance and sportsmanship perspective. I love the idea.
1 response
The USTA uses the US Open as an opportunity to wine and dine VIPs. It makes sense because a registered non-profit, the USTA needs donations from generous benefactors in order to operate. The USTA brass enforces a strict dress code in the Presidential Suite at the US Open which hosts the upper echelons of benefactors for their own and related causes. The list of prohibited attire includes denim jeans and shorts. Perhaps most shocking of all, tennis shoes are not allowed.
Katrina Adams, the trailblazing former president of the USTA brazenly violated the all-white dress code at Wimbledon when completing there as a player in 1994. She had the audacity to wear a pair of distinctly non-white tennis panties during a singles match at the Championships that year.
1 response
In a column following the Laver Cup this year, Tennis Analyst Jon Wertheim observed that in this age if polarization, most fans consider the the exhibition to be either flawless or worthless with no middle ground. For the sake of transparency, I am firmly in the “worthless” camp, as evidenced by my pejorative use of the word “exhibition” when characterizing the event. I have always seen The Laver Cup as a big money grab to cash in on the appeal of Federer and Nadal while they are still playing. Tennis needs to be building future stars rather than clinging desperately to the waning glory days of the most marketable male players in the history of the sport.