This weekend we are celebrating Father’s Day. Yesterday’s post kicked off the festivities by recapping tennis Dad jokes previously described on this site. Those posts framed the discussion by exploring the context of the unwritten rules for successfully deploying that unique brand of humor within our sport. Today, I am describing another instance that clearly falls within this category.
In recreational tennis, it is not at all uncommon for a player to attempt to play a ball, completely fail to make contact, and be rewarded for the miss when the ball lands just out. When that happens, it is almost a moral obligation for someone in the vicinity to congratulate the good fortune with the exclamation “Good eye!” It is the perfect capstone to a comedy of errors.
The joke is funny because everyone understands that the player did not, in fact, demonstrate good judgment. It is a retroactive assignment of credit, where none is due. The player receives ironic praise for a decision they never actually made.
As a matter of tennis mechanics, this joke appears far more often in doubles than singles. When a singles player swings and misses, they often fail to see where the ball lands. Thus, the opportunity for the punchline is completely whiffed along with the ball. Doubles is a more conducive environment for this particular variation of dad joke. The player’s partner frequently has an excellent view of the bounce and a vested interest in supporting them with humor, while simultaneously delivering a healthy dose of good-natured ribbing.
Even with this new installment of “Good Eye” into the pantheon of tennis Dad jokes, I am becoming increasingly convinced that the current catalog remains incomplete. At this point, this site has formally documented four tennis dad jokes:
Surely there are more. I refuse to believe that a sport populated by so many actual fathers has exhausted the available supply of dad jokes.
Therefore, I conclude today’s missive with a request for assistance. If you have encountered a tennis dad joke worthy of preservation for posterity, please send it my way. Doing so is the perfect way to celebrate Father’s Day.
