Carolyn

Hi , this is Carolyn and I'm here with Erin and this is part two of our episode with Aileen discussing why captaining is so hard . Both Erin and Aileen have captained teams for more than a decade . If you haven't listened to part one , we hope you go back and listen . But here's part two .

Erin

Let's talk about flipping courts a little bit , and everybody calls this different . What was the other term , carolyn , that someone used ?

Carolyn

Rolling . Are you going to roll courts ?

Erin

Rolling courts . I don't even know what that means , but that sounds like bowling or you know , bocce to me or something . But anyway , we call it flipping .

Carolyn

Yes , because she said did you roll ?

Erin

Yes , are they going to roll ?

Carolyn

Erin

We call it flipping . So I was asking Aileen , before we started recording as a captain , if you're going into a match . So at our 4-0 level and at 3-5 , I think everything except 2-5 , I think 2-5 plays three courts only , so they play one singles in , two at least in our area I don't know about every area In our area 2-5s play one court of singles , two courts of doubles and everything above that plays five courts , so two with a caveat , two courts of singles and three courts of doubles , except for now the 40 over , which is only one singles Nonetheless . Do you quote flip ?

Erin

Would you consider flipping , like if you have a really strong singles player and maybe a weaker one , would you maybe flip those two courts and put your stronger one on , let's say , singles two , hoping that the team you're playing against is playing straight up to win a singles court , to kind of guarantee nothing's guaranteed but to hopefully win a singles court , and then , maybe , you know , flip your doubles courts to just try to get two of your doubles courts so that you get three out of the five . And I know other areas count points . I don't think they do it exactly like us . We're literally just win the majority of the courts right . So we have to win three out of five courts each week for a team win . So what's your philosophy on doing that ?

Aileen

For the most part , I play straight up , and the reason being I feel like it would be that one time that they decided to switch for some reason because odds are , if they're scared of us , we're scared of them , kind of thing , or it's getting tight , you know , in the rankings and it comes down to this match or for whatever reason . Having said that , I do , especially for playoffs and things like that I will look at every team and I will put every person and what court they played and when and I think that happened this last spring for playoffs or no , we didn't make playoffs For some team I captained that made it playoffs . At some point this last year . I went through there and did that and it's like , yes , and somebody was telling me you need to switch , you need to flip , you need to flip , and I'm like , yeah , but look , they flipped this time , they flipped that Honestly any and when playoffs come , people could do things that they've never done before .

Aileen

So I think if you just play straight up , then your conscious is clear . And not only that , but I have . Sometimes there's a big disparity in my one , in my two , or my one in my three on doubles courts , and I don't want anybody to feel like I'm throwing them under the bus Now , having said that , if it is a tight match and I had a team that realized they were a weaker team and came to me and said this is what I think you should do , put us there , then I would probably do that . But I think it would have to come to them and I've heard of that done to other captains and things like that and teams . I've been available , I've been on . People have come up and said I think you need to switch .

Erin

Aline and I also talked about , if you like there are some . So what you have to think of as a captain , art . There are some players that just mentally don't want to be on certain courts , right , some players think they're really good and they get mad if you put them on three . Some people think they're really bad and if you put them on one , they just mentally break down and you might think their court one doubles player , you know what . So you have to again , as a captain , you have to constantly also think about people's mentality and what they think of their own play and where they feel like they should be .

Erin

And I'm sure you've had people say just don't put me on one , yeah , all the time , and they might be like your . You know your best player , so anyway , that's . That is really good point . I am one of those people , carolin , that likes to play on one . Because , number one , I feel like I'm gonna get the best tennis . Whether I win or lose , I'm gonna get . You know , if someone's playing straight up , you're probably gonna face their toughest play , your opponents toughest players . And two , it takes the pressure off me because I think if I win my court , yeah , me , and if I lose my court , I'm like well , I just played the best person , so you'll need to clean it up on the rest of the court .

Carolyn

So People don't realize their strength necessarily okay , I have a question what's your number one pet peeve as a captain , from a player's perspective , just so that I know what's your number one pet peeve that people do . Is it not responding ? Is it telling you after the fact how you should have done the line up ?

Aileen

I have one for this you go , it's saying I'm in when you're in a group or something , we really want to play together , we really want to play together and then getting the text or the call right afterwards okay , I know I said that , but I'd rather not play with her , I'd rather play with somebody else . Again , multiple times , again , different people , multiple times doesn't happen in men's tennis .

Erin

Oh , I don't know what would be my biggest pet peeve . I think just feeling like when I have made lineups and thought them all through and people give me their availability and then I put out a lineup and then they go oh no , I'm not available that day and I'm like yes , and that happens more in makeup matches .

Erin

Regular season is like but you'll get if you do a makeup match . It's a you know you get a rain out and then you say , okay , give me three or four dates that I can then go to the other team , and then you take Half of your day it seems like four hours of your day or something . You're working with the other captain and you've you've scheduled the match and then you go back to your team . You're like , okay , you're playing , you know these two players at this location on this day , and then someone goes what ? I can't actually play that day . I'm like I feel like I'm being punked , like my head , literally , like emoji , explodes . So that is definitely my number one .

Aileen

But having said that , on that , which that's a whole nother podcast in this area is dealing with rain makeup . Yes , but Sometimes it takes a long time . It's like , okay , you've got your lineup , you think you can play these courts , and you go to the other team and you tell them and then it's crickets for a little while and 24 hours later you hear from them and by that time you know it's rain for three days straight . So another team that this person's playing on his already booked a match and so now you're out is kind of like , okay , you gotta take it off . Yes , don't know , it's tough yeah , yeah .

Aileen

Why , captain sucks . Yeah , that , that part stuff . Yeah , checking courts that's .

Erin

Yeah , you do the best can exactly , we do the best we can .

Aileen

For the pay grade .

Carolyn

Thank you to all the captains out there listening to Aaron and a link discuss . This has made me very appreciative for all my captains . If any other captains listening have any other pet peeves , please let us know . You can message us on our website , which is second , sir podcast dot com . Thanks so much for listening and hope to see you on the court soon .