"Your Calls Are So Bad - You Need Glasses!"

Sometimes people ask me, "Aren't you afraid you'll run out of things to say about tennis?" And then I play a match where one of my opponents says, "Your calls are so bad that you need glasses!" and I think I'm never going to run out of things to say about tennis.

Yesterday I played on my Champ level team (me at Champ level is a whole other story) with Susan who could not be sweeter, nicer and funner to play with. Somewhere in about the third game of the first set, I swear it was that early, after Susan had called one of our opponent's shots out for maybe the third time, our opponent lost it. I mean completely LOST it. Her exact words were, "That's at least the seventh bad call you've made! Seriously! Your calls are so bad - you need glasses!" Susan responded, the opponent responded, this went on for just a little while. And then we went back to playing.

To say the match suddenly got unfriendly would be putting it mildly. And the trash talk did not end there. On one of the changeovers, our opponent's partner somehow found the opportunity to tell Susan, "Well, I'm not going to make bad calls just because someone else is making bad calls. I'm totally supportive of my partner."

Geez Louise!

The good news for me and MY partner is this ridiculous exchange really fired us up. Susan was NOT going to lose this match. And she wasn't going to let me lose it either. We ultimately won in a third-set super tiebreaker so, in my opinion, it could have gone either way. But my partner not only did NOT lose her cool, she kept me going. She kept me calm and on track.

And we won! Without telling anyone they needed glasses! What a fun match!

AND, by the way, the trash talker HIT me in the leg on an overhead AND she apologized profusely. Her mistake.





© Kim Selzman 2009
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