Last night I went over to Miller Park in Winston-Salem and watched my wife, Celeste, play in her first-ever tennis match. She was a nervous wreck for days before the match and was really concerned with how she was going to play, whether or not she would be able to remember the rules, how to score, etc. Well, she and her partner won 6-2 and 6-4 and I’m damn proud of how she played.
The experience was great for more reasons than her play and her winning. The league she’s in is a USTA 2.0 women’s league which is a pretty rare species. The USTA ranks players so that, at least in concept, you can play against a bunch of people of similar ability. Since 2.0 is for raw beginners you don’t find people playing it for more than one season so it’s hard to get enough people together to play. The ladies that continue playing out of this league will all be in at least a 2.5 league by next year.
What made this so much fun for me was seeing how much fun these ladies were having. They laughed at themselves when they made mistakes, they helped each other out with scoring and in general they all seemed to be having a great time. That’s a stark difference from many of the 4.0 level leagues I’ve played in. In fact some of the biggest ass-wipes I’ve ever encountered have been on tennis courts. So seeing these ladies have so much fun reminded why I liked tennis in the first place.
Line of the night from one of Celeste’s opponents when she was slow to call a ball out: "Well I just feel so BAD when the ball goes out I don’t want to call it."
Oh, and seeing how much Celeste has improved in just a few weeks of practice was a real eye-opener. I’m going to have to watch my back. Note to my buddy Ted: She already hits harder than me which means she hits a crap-load harder than you:)
Mixed-doubles anyone?
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Befuddled 
Amateur sports are awesome. A problem with our society, in my mind, is that too many of us have become spectators instead of players. Glad to see you and your wife are having fun and setting a good example for your kids.
I hear ya about the attitudes that creep in as the level of competition goes up.
Thanks Jim. I absolutely agree with you about the ratio of participation vs. viewing, which is why I’m happy to see all of the new “extreme” sports evolve. Skateboarding was starting to get big when I was a kid but no one thought of it as a sport despite the fact that it is easily as difficult and physically demanding as many traditional sports. Anything that the kids can latch onto and have fun with is a good thing in my book.