I won the last point and lost?!

How do you win the last point of your tennis match and lose?  Well that’s easy, you play Timed matches.  After splitting sets in a Central PA district timed match against a solid team we started the mandatory 3^rd set tiebreaker.  The district rule in this scenario is the match is over when the buzzer goes off and whoever is ahead in the tiebreaker wins.   We were less than half way through the tiebreaker when my buzzer beating groundie landed on the baseline for a clean winner, <buzzzzzzzz>, we shake hands, we lose the tiebreaker 4-5, and the match, and the team match 1-2.  Yuk!  I’m sure I would be elated if we had won – but we didn’t.

In the last 10 days we played both UMLY and UMLY 2.  We beat both and are now in 2^nd place at 5-2 with the undefeated Pirates up next on Friday, February 10^th.  We’ve struggled somewhat to find our groove this year but several teammates are picking up the pace and it’s starting to make Districts look like a possibility.

Can’t we all just get along?  I’m referencing a recent situation in the Delaware District and my point is that there is a lot of passion in recreational USTA leagues.  There is so much passion, I believe that many are prone to think the worst.  Captains and players too often jump to conclusions and are quick to prorogate conspiracy theories about other captains and how the USTA leagues are administrated.   As a long time coordinator and someone who has sat on the Middle States grievance committee, this does happen.

The short version of the incident is this.  A Delaware 8.0 team captain (Team X) instructed his three individual teams (1^st, 2^nd & 3^rd doubles) to go to their

respective courts, court 2, 3 & 4 at the club they were playing at.  The error that happened was 2^nd doubles went to court 2, 3^rd doubles went to court 3 and 1^st doubles went to court 4.  The Team X captain played in the match and the “Team Y” captain watched the entire match from the viewing area.  The mistake was not noticed until after the match was completed and Team X won 2-1.  The Team Y captain was upset and accused the team X captain of intentionally cheating and sent an email to the Mixed coordinator, all mixed captains and all 4.0 men’s captains explaining his theory of how you intentionally cheat by sending players to the wrong courts.

The rule is that you have until the end of the first set to notice incorrect players and after that, all play played, stands.  I’m paraphrasing but essentially the Team Y captain postulates in his email this strategy – you pick the match ups you want and send your players to those courts ignoring the exchanged lineup.  You then see if the match is going well – if so stay.  If not, switch and restart.

All is well that ends well.  The coordinator of Delaware Mixed clarified some of the fuzzy points in the email and exonerated Team X.   The Team Y captain who was upset apologized, the Team X captain gracefully accepted his apology and the case illustrates well how some captains are quick to react negatively to situations and rules they don’t fully understand.  My personal opinion is that intentional cheating in league play (including line calls) is exceedingly rare.

The USTA is now facing real competition for tennis players time now that Cup tennis, Club tennis, World Team, Owners league, Flex leagues and other formats are presenting real choices for what used to be more of a captive audience.  USTA league tennis is a blessing in so many ways.  My hope is that we all enjoy our favorite pastime as much as possible and that participants rarely have to deal with such unpleasantness.  Life moves pretty fast, if you don’t take a minute to look around and enjoy it – you might just miss it.