Sopranos-style Tennis - Playing in New Jersey (Crazy Stories) Part 2

Kana is back to tell us about crazy adult recreational tennis stories in New Jersey! Playing indoors with a time limit can make everything a little more difficult because one team may want to slow down while the other team may want to speed up. It can lead to a few frustrating or funny situations!

We are replaying a few of our most popular episodes and this was one of them!

If you live near the Raleigh, NC area please check out the Sanderson High School Midtown Throwdown Tennis Tournament. Come to compete or watch the fun! There will be burgers, beer, music, prizes, and more! The tournament is to raise money for the Sanderson High School Foundation, which provides funding for Sanderson High School to help every student grow, thrive and reach their greatest potential.

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We are excited to team up with Michelle from Tennis Warehouse and her "Talk Tennis" podcast to bring you a "TW Tip of the Week!" Use the code SECONDSERVE to get $20 off clearance apparel when you spend $100 or more.

If you would like to see pictures of our guests or listen to any of our previous episodes, please visit our website https://secondservepodcast.com. You can search for any topic that you're interested in and find an episode about it. We also have information about ratings, rules, tennis gear and more on our "Resources" page.  Thanks so much for listening!

Transcript

Carolyn: 0:08

Hi, this is Carolyn, and I'm here with Erin, and this is part two of our episode with Canna. Canna is a 4.0 and is hilarious. She used to play tennis in New Jersey and if you'd like to hear about the local league she played in when she lived in New Jersey, please check out part one, but here is part two.

Erin: 0:26

So what do you have like a crazy, a good, crazy story? People love crazy stories on the podcast.

Kana: 0:33

Well, I guess you know, like I said, there was a lot of fighting. I got into. You know indoors the way that it is. You have two hours, so at quarter till you have to assess where you are. So if you won the first set, you won the first set. If you're more than two games up in the second set, you've won the second set, right. If you are one game apart, you play one more game to see if you're either tied or someone is up by two. If you're tied, then you go into a tie break At two hours on the dot you say final point, sudden death.

Kana: 1:14

And that's it. And you know, I saw a lot of. You know people, if you were up to, all of a sudden you start to play very slowly, mm-hmm, tired, so people could drag the clock out, yeah, and someone. So that was a lot of fighting. That created a lot of tension. And then my partner, who was incorrect, she argued and argued and argued with them and then it was, the two hours had passed and she said, well, we were up by one, so now that was sudden death, we'd won. And technically she was right. But you know she had really just bickered with them for 15 minutes. 15 minutes, yeah, Basically, and so you know they wanted to beat her up and take her out to the parking lot to beat her up. It's a lot of ugly name calling.

Erin: 2:07

Oh my goodness, what did you say we?

Carolyn: 2:08

just like bye. I'll see you guys later.

Kana: 2:11

I was standing on the service line. I'm like I don't want anything to do with this, you know, like you know, but she ended up getting kicked off the team anyway. So, because she had turned on her partner and called her partner you know a really bad name. Like it's bad when the opponents are consoling a partner. Yes, yes so.

Carolyn: 2:31

And what? What level would you say this? Is that just to give us something comparable to you?

Kana: 2:36

I would say it's like a 30354045. Okay, so all those levels. Yeah probably are probably comparable. Yeah, you know, yeah.

Carolyn: 2:48

What if someone had to go to the bathroom? Are you allowed to go to the bathroom? Yeah, are you allowed to go to the bathroom?

Kana: 2:54

between sets. Okay, only between sets.

Carolyn: 2:58

And are you timed?

Kana: 3:00

Um no, but I'm sure, if I think, that if you took an extraordinary amount of time, you know Be getting an advice and maybe there are people who would time.

Kana: 3:09

I think I had someone Once say my partner was drinking a Red Bull and someone said that's a performance enhancing drink. You can't drink that. So it was a very serious league. People were like I think it was that there was a lot of people who were perhaps X very powerful people in New York or you know. They mean not like very kind of type a, you know type a, yeah, you know. And then Kids, very successful, yes, and decided to take up tennis and then decided to do this league, and so it. They were serious, it was no joke.

Carolyn: 3:50

Yeah, and it's a day league too. Correct, it's a day league too. Yeah, I always think that day league tennis can sometimes be like everybody's fight club, you know, yes, like you got to get it all out there, and yeah, I think that league is a little more relaxed.

Kana: 4:09

Yeah, people who are working and they're just trying to be there to have fun.

Erin: 4:12

Yeah, yeah, I just want to have a drink. Sometimes they drink during tennis.

Kana: 4:16

Yes, yeah.

Erin: 4:17

Yeah, yeah, um, I always tell people, though I'm not out to play tennis, to fight. I got plenty of people and I'm. I have a husband, I got kids, I got parents, I have plenty of people that I can argue with. I'm not gonna go out on a tennis court and argue with people, but it is a competitive sport and so people get. Like you said, canna, it's like they were probably successful in life and they're gonna be successful.

Erin: 4:41

Yeah, on the court and yeah, I played a couple ladies this week and we beat them pretty handily in the first set and I looked at my partner going into the Second and I said these ladies do not like to lose. This is gonna turn around real quick and did it ever. And it was kind of in that same situation where it was an hour and a Half and same thing. Like you ended where you ended and you put in scores based on and we got to a match tie break and it I was serving at four all and the time was up, so it was like last. But then they were like what's the score? And they start. You know they kind of delayed and then it threw me off my game a little bit and I served in the next one. They won that point and they're like oh, they won.

Kana: 5:17

I was like my husband's like well, you know, was it so crazy? I said, well, I've been to more than one team meeting where we discussed kicking out somebody. I've been to more than one team meeting where we talked about replacing the captain because People were unhappy. I mean, like you know, that's pretty intense. I can't imagine that happening here.

Erin: 5:43

You won't find that in Mrolley. No, If you do, it would be the rarest story.

Kana: 5:47

I mean most people are so thankful of the captains because they just understand what they're. You know it's the worst unpaid job ever.

Carolyn: 5:54

Yes, yes.

Erin: 5:56

You know Carolyn flat out refuses to do it because she's heard too many stories now especially since we've been doing this podcast.

Carolyn: 6:03

They need to be a captain.

Erin: 6:04

Yeah, no, and this is in a nice area too Right For the team.

Kana: 6:09

If someone missed the team meeting, we would vote them in as the captain.

Carolyn: 6:13

That's a good way to get the captain and they would wait to get so mad yeah.

Erin: 6:17

Yeah, that's a good way to get full attendance.

Kana: 6:19

So in the summer we played a country club it was a country club league basically and our tennis team was in there. So we were at Trump National we're warming up One of the partners wasn't there, so we're warming up, the three of us and she said sorry, my partner is having some kind of emergency, but she's on her way. So it was the kind of courts where you can just drive up to. You know what I mean. It wasn't like a parking lot, was far away. Basically, this one woman in a Ferrari convertible comes racing down the road so she parks her car and she says I'm really sorry, I was having this emergency and we were like don't worry about it. And then she said and I don't know why I would know this and I don't know what context, but somehow I knew within the first 30 seconds she had her masters from Princeton. She was able to drop that in somehow.

Erin: 7:12

In the first 30 seconds.

Kana: 7:14

Yeah, and so we're playing and she said I'm really between the first and second set. I'm really sorry, do you mind if I use my phone? I'm dealing with this situation and I kind of had the impression she was a little younger, so maybe her kids are sick, and phone usage was super like you couldn't do it. It was. People are really down on that. And so I said, of course, like if you have an emergency, please feel free. So she's talking on the phone longer maybe than she should, but you know, whatever, and they killed us. And afterwards at these things, you always have lunch with the other team, which we don't get here.

Carolyn: 7:53

Yeah, that's strange to me, yeah.

Kana: 7:56

Always have lunch with the other team. But this is where it trumped, like if you came to our club, someone would be on chicken salad. Who's bringing the couscous salad, or whatever. This is like a wedding buffet, like quality, because we're there, catered and everything. And they said well, this is the spread, but if you would like something else, please feel free to order off the menu. If you'd like a glass of champagne, if you'd like to stay for the afternoon and swim at the pool or whatever. And so after we're done, she says I'm really sorry, I can't stay for lunch, but I have to go home and deal with this emergency. So I was like, yeah, of course. And she were eating lunch afterwards with the teams and she shows up and I said, oh, is everything sorted out? And she said yes. She said I was getting a chandelier delivered to my house, but it was so large that it wouldn't fit in the double doors, so they had to take the window out and crane it in. That was her emergency. And I was like, oh, of course.

Erin: 9:08

Of course, quite the emergency.

Kana: 9:10

That is quite a problem.

Carolyn: 9:12

I know.

Erin: 9:15

So going off the lunch after it would probably, I mean we're already in the area. Yeah, super awkward.

Erin: 9:21

I was going to say so what we do here is we leave matches and then we proceed to call our friend, like Caroline and I call each other immediately and we're like you're never going to believe what happened in my match. Or you stand in the parking lot Like if you're away right, like not at our club, or even if we're at our club, we stand huddled together with our team and we look to make sure that the other team is gone, because we said, oh my gosh. You're about what happened in my match?

Erin: 9:46

Yeah, but here you're eating lunch with these people that you just played.

Kana: 9:51

Yes Again, and a lot of times it could be super acrimonious. Right Like these are clubs that might have threatened someone, might have threatened to beat up your partner. Right.

Carolyn: 10:02

That works.

Kana: 10:02

a chicken salad Coaches you out right, yeah, and then now you're eating lunch together.

Erin: 10:07

Super awkward, that is odd, yeah, yeah.

Kana: 10:11

But that was like the way it was, like even indoor league and outdoor league and USTA is always wine and cheese. Like the home team would bring wine and cheese and afterwards they would be drinking.

Carolyn: 10:25

I kind of like that. I kind of wish they were drinking, something like that.

Erin: 10:28

I can pick and choose some of the things from that league. So this is the. I mean, these are the things that I would introduce. Like we're always, but we want to go eat lunch with our friends after. I don't want to eat with the other team, but we're always like Carol and I are always like, let's play on this day. But it's almost more important. Like, can we have lunch after I know? Is there food involved? Like that's what I like.

Kana: 10:50

Yeah, Eating with the other team is not fun. No, Because it's also like they never sit together, right. So you're like what is the point of this? And you're like I don't really want to be here eating this food. You're just threatened to beat me up.

Erin: 11:05

Yeah, can you take a to-go box and eat food? Do you guys have a to-go box? Because I got to get out of here and deal with a chandelier.

Carolyn: 11:12

Yeah, totally. Thanks very much to Kana for being on the podcast. I think we've all learned that if your emergency is chandelier related, you may not want to mention that to your opponents. If you'd like to see a picture of Kana or listen to her previous episode, you can do that on our website, which is SecondServePodcastcom. Thanks so much for listening and hope to see you on the courts soon. All right?