Un-Undefeated

I've found that things have a way of evening out over time.  When things aren't going so well, it's nice to know that life will eventually get better again.  On the other hand, when everything seems to be going my way, that also means that rough times are probably ahead.  In terms of my tennis game, 2010 was one of those times when I had to just sit back and hope that things would turn around...

Tendonitis in my left Achilles kept me from playing competitive tennis for more than a year.  After a demoralizing, pain-in-the-ankle match in a work tennis league in mid-January, I hung up the racquet and didn't pick it up again until May 2011.  But sure enough, things have a way of evening out...

When I started up again in May in a USTA mixed doubles league, my two goals I set for myself were very, very basic: (1) don't re-injure the ankle, and (2) no crotch shots--well don't be on the receiving end of any crotch shots.  It was a simple game plan, but I hadn't gone fifteen months without playing tennis since I first started practicing when I was twelve.  Shockingly, despite my horrendous lack of practice, we won the match in straight sets.  And, even more shockingly, we continued winning matches in straight sets all summer.

As my partner and I piled up the wins, our team continued winning, too.  By August, we'd finished the season at the top of the standings, qualifying for sectionals in September.  Somehow, the wave of victory continued, and my partner and I swept our matches, the team went 3-0, and we qualified for nationals in November.

I fully expected our team to get destroyed at nationals--the warm-weather teams from California and Texas have a long history of dominating the pathetic, frigid northern states.  Though my partner and I went 1-2 and our team also finished 1-2, I was pleasantly surprised at how competitive we'd been--every one of our matches was close, and we didn't even have our best lineup playing.  Things were looking very promising for the 2012 summer season...but I should have remembered that things have a way of evening out...

After nationals wrapped up in mid-November, I barely touched a racquet for the rest of the winter.  To make matters worse, the USTA finally came to its senses and bumped up the rating of our semi-pro ringer, Tony, from 5.0 to 5.5, which meant he was no longer eligible to play in the league (yes, the same Tony from that crazy hybrid singles/doubles match this spring.  Then my partner said she was going to be too busy to play regularly this summer, so she didn't sign up.  The old team was getting dismantled, but somehow, I still felt optimistic that we'd field a solid lineup when the season started.

The summer season kicked off in mid-May.  The captain found a new partner for me.  We'd never met or played together before, and to say it didn't go well just doesn't do justice to the epic craptacularity that unfolded on the court that day.  I played bad, and she played even worse.  We were matched up against a middle-aged team with mediocre tennis skills, yet the lone highlight of the match for us was the one game we put on the scoreboard in the second set before they put us out of our misery, 6-0, 6-1.  Any prospect of another undefeated season was blown off the court in about forty-five minutes, and the team's hopes were also squashed as we lost 2-1.

I figured the next match couldn't get any worse, and fortunately, I was right.  I got better, but not better enough.  The captain paired me with a different partner again (it wasn't hard to notice that the last pairing hadn't gone well).  She was a tennis instructor at one of the Lifetime clubs, but I wouldn't have guessed that from watching her play.  My performance was a lot better than the previous match, but her double faulting and consistently inconsistent play led us to defeat.  Again, the team lost...0-2.

Two losses had already all but eliminated us from sectionals, so I really didn't care what happened going into the third match.  I was paired with the instructor again, and things started well enough before they came crashing down.  We blew a 5-3 lead in the first set, then lost the second.  I was 0-3 and the team lost again, also falling to 0-3.

Tonight was my fourth match of the season, and all I could do was hope that things would start evening out. I was scheduled to play with yet another partner, so I hoped that might help end the sad winlessness that's been plaguing me for two months.  The good news is that I didn't lose tonight...but the bad news is that I didn't win tonight, either.  After driving to Lifetime, I learned that one of our opponents' three teams had to default.  I was still scheduled to play, but then one of the guys on their remaining two teams failed to show up.  Default number two meant that I'd driven to Lifetime for nothing.  On the plus side, our team picked up a rare win...

Looking back, why was I even considering the possibility of a turnaround tonight?  After all, it's Friday the 13th, a day far better known for chainsaw massacres and axe murders than tennis comebacks.  There's always next week...but I'm hoping things start to even out swing my way again.  After last year's undefeated season, I now run the serious risk of going winless in the summer of 2012.

This wildly unsuccessful streak of tennis makes me apprciate my old partner that much more.  She hardly ever double faulted, she moved up to the net on every point, and we never felt the need to congratulate each other for good shots or apologize for bad ones.  We barely talked when we played...it was like two singles players covering halves of the same court.  We never tried anything fancy and didn't talk strategy at all, but not overthinking seemed to be the key to success.  Now, as we approach the midpoint of the summer, I have to keep reminding myself that things will eventually even out...right?

The Bitter End Of A Summer Tradition

You may not realize it, but with Sunday evening upon us, we've reached the eve of one of the greatest weeks of the year.  Some people may try to convince you that the seven day stretch with Christmas and New Year's is the best, with the vacation days, parties, food, and the holiday spirit, but it's lacking one essential quality: summer!  The week of the Fourth of July has always been one of my favorite times of year.  Fireworks, grilling, hot summer weather, some of the longest days of the year, and the second week of Wimbledon.  If any of those ingredients were missing, it wouldn't be the same.

Some of my fondest childhood memories involve spending the week at my grandparents' house, watching Wimbledon every morning during the second week of the tournament.  During that second week, NBC also had a nightly Wimbledon update after the 10PM news, with John McEnroe and Mary Carillo providing highlights from the day's matches.  Even though I'd watched them all, I loved staying up to see the recap.  At the end of the week, I'd wake up early for NBC's "Breakfast at Wimbledon" coverage of the finals on Saturday and Sunday.  Wimbledon was one of the few tennis tournaments that was covered on network TV, and it's what got me interested in the game and convinced me to start playing.

Over the years, I've kept the Wimbledon tradition alive.  Though working has kept me from watching the weekday coverage (don't get me started on how much I miss summer vacation...), I never miss the nightly Wimbledon updates or the "Breakfast at Wimbledon" coverage on the final Saturday and Sunday of the tournament.  I could tell you where I was when I watched just about every one of the finals matches over the past fifteen years, and NBC's Wimbledon theme music is the practically the summer soundtrack to my childhood:


 


Last week, I watched some of the early round matches at ESPN3.com.  I don't have cable, but I was able to watch online since ESPN covers the first week of the tournament and Comcast subscribers have access to ESPN3.  I caught a few minutes of tennis every day before work, but the first week has never been too interesting to me...watching two guys I've never heard of battle it out on court 32 for the chance to get crushed by a good player the next round just doesn't keep me entertained.  I did notice that John McEnroe was calling some of the matches on ESPN, which surprised me, since he was always a commentator for NBC.  I didn't think much of it at the time...

Yesterday afternoon, I turned on the TV and flipped to NBC, hoping to watch the last day of action in the first week...but Wimbledon was nowhere to be found.  I went to the NBC website and looked at their programming schedule, and Wimbledon didn't show up anywhere for the entire upcoming week.  I searched some more and was absolutely crushed by what I learned.  ESPN bought the rights to the entire two weeks of Wimbledon coverage, leaving NBC with nothing after 43 consecutive years of coverage.  This was announced last summer, but I'd somehow missed it...or perhaps repressed the bad memory.

Since I have access to ESPN3.com, this should be little more than a minor inconvenience--I can watch the matches live on the computer.  But I'm heading back to Iowa for the 4th of July, and my parents don't have cable, nor do they have access to ESPN3.com.  So not only does NBC's lack of coverage mean that there will be no Wimbledon theme music, no nightly Wimbledon updates, and no Breakfast at Wimbledon next weekend...it means that there will be no Wimbledon at all for me!  How can they do this to me?  That's more than fifteen years of tradition, stopped dead in its tracks!  Watching England's most prestigious tennis tournament is as important a part of celebrating America's independence as the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

There's a bit of a silver lining to this dark cloud, but it's so pathetic that I'd consider it more of an aluminum or tin lining.  ESPN is the only channel offering live coverage of the finals, but ABC will show replays later in the afternoon on Saturday and Sunday next weekend.  There will be no Breakfast at Wimbledon for me, and I'll have to go out of my way to avoid watching TV, going online, or checking my phone so I don't accidentally see who won before I watch the replay. 

Maybe 2012 will mark the beginning of a sad new "Late Lunch At Wimbledon" tradition, but I already know that it won't come anywhere close to measuring up.  Worse yet, I have little hope for the future--ESPN has locked up the rights to Wimbledon coverage through the end of the decade.  R.I.P. classic Wimbledon tradition...I feel strangely older and more bitter and jaded than I did yesterday...

Please, Quit Your Day Job!

Any good tennis fan knows that these are dark days for U.S. tennis.  On the men's side, Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, and Andy Murray have a lock on the top four sports, and the American men have been anything but consistent, with Andy Roddick battling injuries and Mardy Fish and John Isner offering little hope for the future.  The women's side has been an unpredictable mess, and not just for the Americans.  For most of the past decade, Serena and Venus Williams have dominated women's tennis, but I'm pleased to see that their best days are far behind them.

For reasons I can't understand, the Williams sisters have been tremendously popular over years.  No one can deny their accomplishments or their tennis abilities, but I've always cheered wildly for their opponents and celebrated their losses.  While I don't like Venus, Serena has annoyed me even more.  This might sound harsh, but Serena has a bloated ego that rivals that of Chad Ochocino, and I can't name another athlete who consistently demonstrates less grace in defeat than Serena Williams...or one who is more out of touch with reality or farther removed from the word "sportsmanship."

There are all kinds of websites devoted to the ridiculous quotes of Serena Williams, who is famous for her refusal to give credit to her opponents after losing a match.  Here are some of my personal favorites that have shaped my opinion of Serena over the years:

• "All she had to do was show up." (after losing to Justin Henin in the 2007 French Open)
• "I just think she made a lot of lucky shots and I made a lot of errors." (after losing to Henin again at the U.S. Open a few months later)
• "We all know who the real number one is. Quite frankly, I'm the best in the world." (after losing the #1 ranking in 2009)
•  "I probably played at about twenty percent." (after losing to Caroline Wozniacki earlier this year)

Aside from the arrogance and lack of sportsmanship, there's the "out of touch with reality" angle I mentioned earlier.  The Williams sisters seem to think their greatest talents have nothing to do with a tennis racquet.  It grows very tiresome to hear tennis analysts praise their well-rounded interests while failing to acknowledge the glaringly obvious fact that their tennis fame has opened all kinds of doors that would have otherwise been slammed in their faces.

Both Venus and Serena are "aspiring fashion designers," and both are absolutely convinced that they're naturally gifted in this area.  Sure, Venus and Serena have designed clothes for major brands...but would they be getting paid to design clothes if they weren't famous tennis players?  Seems unlikely.  And Serena, in addition to her delusions of fashion grandeur, also fancies herself an aspiring actress and model.  Nothing can highlight the ridiculousness better than Serena's own words:

• "I'm an unbelievable designer.  I don't know how I know and just do these things.  I just start sketching and then I just know the colors and I always know the forecast.  I know green and purple are going to be hot.  I was born to be a designer.  I worked hard to be a tennis player; I don't work hard to be a designer."
• "I don't want to sound like I'm pontificating or anything, but I think I'm really good at that--I'm the best.  Besides Versace, Armani, I'm right up there."
• "I would be really excellent in a horror film because I have a great scream.  I'd be really good in a comedy, too.  I'm top, top, top, top quality."
• "I've been getting my reel together.  I think they are looking at me more as an actress because I have a lot of potential and a lot of skills."
• "I'm an actress, model, and athlete, and I'd put athlete third on that list."

There are too many epic quotes to include in what is quickly becoming a lengthy blog post.  All these annoying quotes don't even cover Serena's on-court behavior, which includes her spectacularly unsportsmanlike exits from the past two U.S. Opens she's played in, which included blaming and threatening a line judge after getting called for a foot fault, and blaming an umpire who awarded a point to her opponent after Serena yelled mid-rally and interfered with the other player's shot.

 How dare you do your job!

I won't even get started on all the quotes where Serena praises her own appearance and refers to herself as "slim and sexy." One of the Serena quote websites summed it up perfectly when it implied that the only place Serena might look slim is in a fun-house mirror. Attractive? Some of the most frequently Googled Serena-related searches include "Serena is a man" and "Serena Williams gorilla." And, the cherry on top of this disgusting sundae is the Williams sisters' readiness to play the race card at the drop of a hat. Bad line call? Fans cheering against them? Bad bounce? Unfavorable draw? Must me racially motivated! Because none of those things happen to the other players...

Okay, I've ranted more than enough about why I love to see the Williams--especially Serena--lose matches. But one recent move by Serena absolutely takes the cake. What do self-absorbed celebrities do as they try to cross over from sports into the entertainment industry? I'll offer a hint: Shaq, Kobe Bryant, Deion Sanders, and Darryl Strawberry all gave it a wildly unsuccessful go.  Sadly, it's true...Serena Williams is now attempting to be a rap artist.  Here's the track.  If your speakers are broken, consider yourself lucky:



I haven't read any quotes from Serena about her rap career, but if history is any indication, I'm sure she's more than willing to tell anyone who will listen that she is the best in the world and that her skills earned her the chance to record a rap song.  One listen to the track is more than enough proof that the only reason someone let Serena Williams step food in a recording studio is because her name is Serena Williams.  Who else would be allowed to record and release a rap song with tennis-themed lyrics?

Swag out this world, you should call me Venus
That’s my sister, my name is Serena
On the court I serve 'em up, no subpoena
I cook the track up like a frozen pizza

I cringe just typing those lines.  From the bad sportsmanship and the oversize ego, to the fondness of playing the race card, to the annoying forays into fashion, acting, modeling, and now rapping, I relish the failure of the Williams sisters.  There's been plenty to celebrate lately, with Serena losing in the first round of the French Open and Venus losing in the first round of Wimbledon earlier this week. 

If Serena considers herself and actress and model more than a tennis player, I'm all for that.  I hope everyone in the sport encourages her to hang up the racquet and focus on sharing all of those other "talents" with the world.  I have no doubt that once their tennis careers are over, the Williams sisters will fade into oblivion, and tennis fans will enjoy the relative silence at all those post-match press conferences.  Now I'll just sit back and wait for Serena to lose at Wimbledon...I don't care how it happens, but for me it will likely rival the classic 2008 Federer/Nadal Wimbledon final.

Semi-Professional Keep-Away

As promised, I will now finally provide my anticipation-filled audience with a recap of Sunday's showdown with Mr. and Mrs. Tony in the Sandy Dyer Open.  Of course, if you were really that curious, you could have clicked on the link in my previous post and gone to the USTA website for the tournament, which includes the results of all the matches. But this story is infinitely more fulfilling than the score sheet alone could ever be.

During the pre-match warmup, I realized that win or lose, there wasn't a lot of upside for me in this match.  If my partner and I pulled off the victory, we'd have beaten a great player, sure, but he had to cover the entire court--including the doubles alleys--while also compensating for an extremely weak partner who had to return half the points and serve every fourth game.  And if we lost...well, then it meant that two of us were unable to overcome all of those advantages that I just mentioned.  It's a lot like punching an annoying child--it's plenty satisfying, but you don't get the credit you deserve.  But credit or no credit, it was going to be an interesting match.  Could Tony really cover the entire court single-highhandedly?  We were about to find out.

The tournament director put us on one of the show courts near the big windows of the lobby so the crowd could get a good look at this strange spectacle of a doubles match.  On the courts to either side of us were some painfully out-of-shape middle-aged players, which made Tony's shots look that much better...and believe me, they looked plenty good to begin with.

The first set played out much like I'd expected, which was a far cry from any doubles match I'd been a part of.  Tony's presence on the court took my two normal doubles strategies and threw them right out the window: (1) get to the net as quickly as possible, and (2) avoid hitting to the person to the net.  Instead, my primary objectives became: (1) avoid going to the net at all costs whenever Tony might hit the ball, and (2) try to hit absolutely everything at Mrs. Tony, regardless of where she is standing on (or way, way off) the court.

To no one's surprise, Tony didn't lose his serve once in the first set.  I somehow managed to match him every step of the way, holding my serve every time.  But watching our partners serve was absolutely hilarious.  Mrs. Tony's serve was slow enough that we were able to get the ball past Tony at the net, but he started playing back at the baseline, standing right next to her when she served and then poaching cross-court to try to keep her from hitting any other shots during the point.  Poaching at the baseline was something I hadn't seen before, but we managed to get enough shots to her that we broke her serve every time.

When my partner served, the points played out very differently depending on who was returning.  When Tony's wife returned, the pressure was on me to hit a winner on the first shot off her return, otherwise I'd have to immediately retreat to the baseline, where we would inevitably lose a ground stroke battle with Tony.  Luckily I was able to put away almost every ball she got over the net.  But Tony's returns were a whole different story--I mostly stayed back at the baseline fearing for my life, since he could put the ball wherever he wanted, as hard as he could hit it...over me, past me, or God forbid, right through me.

He was very successfully covering the whole court, and we had almost no chance of winning the point when he was returning.  If we were lucky, we might get a few of his shots back before watching a winner fly past us...I've never seen someone hit so many winners down the middle of the court.  We easily won almost every point served to the deuce side and lost all the points served to Tony on the ad side.  Unfortunately, Mrs. Tony would sometimes sneak a return over my head, and then the point was as good as gone...and sure enough, my partner lost her serve every time in the first set.

After twelve games, Tony and I had won all of our serve games and our partners had lost all of theirs, leaving us deadlocked at 6-6 and headed for a tiebreaker.  My serve was actually giving Tony some problems in the tiebreaker (I'm guessing he was more bored than overpowered, but I was happy to take the points), and we managed to grab a 5-3 lead.  I blew a fairly routine overhead, but we pulled out a few more points and found ourselves up a set point at 8-7 with me set to serve the next two points.

I hit a solid first serve to Tony and came into the net behind it.  He, of course, hit an even harder return.  It was fully within my reach, but it looked to be headed long and I let it pass me by, only to watch it land an inch inside the baseline...8-8.  The next point should have been an absolute freebie, serving to Mrs. Tony.  Unfortunately, I found the worst possible time to hit my first, last, and only double fault of the match.  Absolutely inexcusable...we were now down 8-9, with Tony serving on set point.  Sure enough, he cracked a huge first serve that I put in the net, and just like that the set slipped through our fingers, 6-7 (8-10).

The second set didn't follow the predictable pattern of the first, unfortunately.  I lost my serve in the second game of the set, which would suggest that we were finished.  But my partner somehow managed to win her next serve game, and we were even at 2-2...but it all fell apart from there.  We played well, but Tony was hitting absolutely every shot, and Mrs. Tony suddenly figured out how to lob her return over my head on a semi-regular basis, which gave us no shot of winning my partner's serve for the rest of the match.  We had plenty of close games, but the Tonys swept them all and finished us off 6-2.

All in all, it was a good news/bad news weekend:

• Bad news: we lost our match of semi-professional keep-away 7-6 (8), 6-2.  And I couldn't blame anyone for that first set but myself.
• Good news: we'd made the finals!  I never looked at the draw sheet, so as we walked off the court after the loss, I asked Tony when they were playing their next round.  That's when he informed me that we had just completed the finals.  Gotta love the four-team draws...and we would all be receiving trophies.
• Bad news:  I really didn't want the trophy. Call me old-fashioned, but going 1-1 in a small tournament is not a trophy-worthy performance.  And that thing will serve only to remind me of a certain missed second serve at 8-8 in the tie-breaker...
• Good news: Tony was nice enough not to kill or wound me.  He had plenty of chances to absolutely murder me at the net, and he was kind enough to hit around me.  I walked away from the match with all of my body parts functioning much like they had at the beginning.
• Bad news: Because they didn't have the runner-up trophies ready, I had to pose for a photo holding a place-holder trophy engraved with "Women's 3.0 Singles Runner-Up."  I told them not to zoom in too close...
• Good news: I also got a T-shirt an a granola bar out of the deal!
• Bad news: the T-shirt is light blue with a yellow shooting star/tennis ball design on the front, and there's a good chance I'll get beaten up if I wear it in public.

Despite the loss, it was a fun match.  It's not often you find two extremes like that on a court, with one person hitting everything 30 mph and the other person hitting every ball  130 mph.  It's even less often that you'll encounter a situation where an adult can win a trophy for simply staying out of the way.  Aside from her mandatory serves and returns, I could count the the number of shots that Mrs. Tony hit during the match on my two hands, and that's no exaggeration. She was the first to joke after the match that all she did was get off the court.

This Friday, it's back to league tennis and the start of the summer season.  Let's just hope I remember how to play normal doubles after this one..

Back To The Disaster

A few days I ago I received an email from the captain of my USTA tennis team, asking if I could fill in for someone and play in a mixed doubles tournament this weekend.  I had to thing long and hard about this one, because the last time I played tennis, which was more than a month ago, it was an absolute disaster and left me thinking about introducing my racquets to gasoline and a zippo.  I hadn't picked them up since that day.

I told the captain I hadn't been playing and that I desperately needed to practice.  But the summer USTA season starts next Friday, and she said the tournament would be a perfect way for me to get ready for the season opener.  That was a new one to me--usually I practice to get ready for a tournament...using the tournament itself as a warmup would be potentially embarrassing experiment.

She promised it would great time and told me that Tony, a guy who played on our team last fall, was also singed up for Open Mixed.  For some reason she thought that would help convince me to sign up, but Tony's presence was hardly a selling point.  He's a really nice guy, and there's no one I'd rather have on my team, but there's also not a single person I would less like to risk facing in a match.

Tony came within a few matches of qualifying for the U.S. Open (yes, that U.S. Open) last fall and plays low-level pro tournaments all over the country.  The one time I practiced against him last year, he absolutely crushed every one my hardest first serves like he was taking batting practice and I was lobbing him softballs.  I've never come up against anything like that, and I almost had a seizure from all the flashing my life was doing before my eyes.

But I figured I better get ready for the summer season, so I agreed to play and signed up for the Sandy Dyer Open.  The captain was able to round up a few people last night to get me some practice before today's match.  When I got Lifetime this afternoon (the same one from that early Saturday match months ago), Tony was already on the show court playing a match, which was great news for me, since it meant that I wouldn't be playing against him.  And watching his match was absolutely hilarious.  Tony's mixed partner was his wife, who isn't quite on the same level as Tony...it looked like she wasn't sure which end of the racquet she should hold on to.  I've never seen such an extreme mismatch of ability on half a tennis court.

 Familiar place...marginally better weather than early March...

Tony was covering every inch of the court, shamelessly--and successfully--playing 2-on-1 against the other team.  His wife hit the absolute minimum number of shots, serving and returning when it was her turn and immediately getting out of the way to let Tony work his magic.  If they other team managed to get the ball to her, they won the point...if they couldn't get it past Tony, he'd crush a winner.   Tony and his wife ended up winning in a super-tiebreaker, and then my partner and I took the show court against one of the Lifetime teaching pros and his partner.

Aside from last night's practice session, I hadn't even looked at a tennis racquet since April Fool's Day, so expectations were low.  Not to mention the fact that I'd never met or played with the partner the captain found for me before this afternoon.  With a packed Lifetime lobby looking on, I just hoped I wouldn't embarrass myself and get laughed off the court.  Things started shaky, but we miraculously pulled off an exciting comeback and won 3-6, 7-6 (5), 10-5...though I did get drilled in the arm, the ankle, and nearly took a forehand in the face.

I couldn't have been more pleased or surprised by the win, especially when it looked for a while like we were going to get absolutely destroyed in the second set.  When I returned to the lobby post-match, there was some bad news: in tomorrow's match, my partner and I will be playing keep-away from a semi-pro player. I never bothered looking at the draw sheet, but sure enough, we'll be meeting Tony and Mrs. Tony in tomorrow morning's match.  This promises to be one of the strangest mixed doubles matches I'll ever play.

 Free tattoos, Sunday at 11AM!

Let's just hope my partner and I can successfully direct the majority of our shots at Mrs. Tony tomorrow, or I'm going to show up to work on Monday with Wilson logos tattooed all over my body.  I'm buying a football helmet tonight and stuffing a pillow down the front of my shorts before tomorrow's match.  Hopefully that doesn't interfere with my vision or my movement...time will tell...

The Dreaded Saturday Alarm

I'm not sure why I keep saying yes, but today was the fourth time this year I've agreed to play early Saturday morning tennis with some teammates from my USTA doubles league. I must really love the game, because during the week I often have nightmares about seeing something like this on the weekends:

Seeing "5:" with an "AM" anywhere near it sends a chill down my spine every time. Giving up one the week's two precious, alarm-free mornings is a huge sacrifice, especially in the winter. When it's dark, snowing, and freezing cold outside, finding the motivation to climb out from under the covers is no easy task. And once I make my way out of bed and drive to the courts, climbing out of the heated car is worse than a punch in the stomach.

So why do I keep saying yes? I need to take advantage of every practice opportunity that comes my way. Since the USTA fall league ended last November, I've managed to play a whopping five times, and my tennis game is quickly developing more rust than the Malibu. And I figure I better take advantage of all the guest passes and semi-reasonably priced indoor court I can get my hands on these days, because Lifetime Fitness is rapidly heading down a path toward keeping all but it's highest-paying members off the tennis courts.

Lifetime seems to have taken a page out of the fee-charging playbooks of the airline and banking industries, finding new ways to charge non-Platinum members absurd guest/court/towel/net/water/parking/lighting/sign-in/locker fees. (I exaggerate, but it's getting to the point where it would cost less to build my own court than to pay Lifetime's fees a few times a month...but that's another blog post for another day...)

Practice is good--and much-needed--but early morning tennis hardly offers the ideal practice environment when the quality of play is so much lower than it would be if we'd just play in the afternoon. It's tough to play focused, aggressive tennis when I spend 50% of my effort trying not to get hit in the face or crotch and the other 50% hoping I don't make a complete fool of myself in my groggy, zombie-like state.

But for a 7AM start time, today wasn't that bad. The quality of play was still low, but the opponents seemed to be every bit as tired as I was, and we somehow pulled out the win. More importantly, my face and crotch are still intact, I didn't embarrass myself too badly, and I somehow avoided the bonus $15 fee that Lifetime charged one of my opponents because he'd signed in as a guest within the last thirty days. A little luck never hurts at 7AM on a Saturday morning. And after a lengthy nap this afternoon, I'm feeling as good as new.