Welcome To Loserville (Getting Bumped - Going From Winning To Losing A Ton)

What is it like going from winning a lot to losing? Do you need to win in order to have fun?

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

Carolyn and Erin discuss what it is like getting bumped and losing. Erin just wants to play good tennis (win or lose) and Carolyn is hoping to have Erin's mentality one day...

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Transcript

Carolyn: 0:07

Hi, this is Carolyn and I'm here with Erin and tonight we're going to discuss going from winning to losing and how hard that can be Right now my husband's won like 90% of his matches. I know Erin has won a majority of her matches and I have only won a few, and it has been very difficult.

Erin: 0:30

You had harder matches than I have. I keep telling you this. I know you don't believe it, but you have played harder matches. You, um, Carolyn and I are both singles players, but I did not play almost any single. Maybe I played one or two singles matches this spring because I was injured. I had, you know, just a weird injury come up right before spring. You have been on court one singles as a brand new four row and lost a lot of those matches, but lost them in close tiebreakers, which I think my philosophy is. You can flip a coin sometimes when it comes to a tiebreaker.

Carolyn: 1:00

Yes, it's just more fun to win.

Erin: 1:03

Let's be honest.

Carolyn: 1:04

You feel better about yourself and my husband is like what did you expect? You just got bumped. I expected to win. I expected to win and I want to win and I hate losing. I think you have a much better mentality, and so does my husband, about losing where you you know like you just want to play good tennis.

Erin: 1:26

Yes, you always tell that to me.

Erin: 1:28

Yeah, I was excited to get bumped up, even though I wanted to bump myself down, because almost none of our three five friends only one other three five friend of ours at our club got bumped up. And you know, we want to play with all our friends Like number one. That, to me, that's the most fun thing about tennis is to play with your friends and have a good time. And if you can't do that which you know on a lot of courts we couldn't, because some of our three five friends weren't playing up to four, oh because, for whatever reason, my next favorite thing is to well. My all time favorite thing is to have fun. But my next favorite thing is to well, my all-time favorite thing is to have fun. But my next favorite thing is to just have really good tennis, win or lose. Yes, I would rather lose a really fun, good match that I feel like I learned from than win a match that was just easy to win.

Carolyn: 2:16

Yeah, I agree with that, but I'm not sure I really feel that way, you know, like I totally agree, and that's the way I should think about it. It's really hard to come back and say, hey, I lost another one. My husband did, though. He lost a season at 3-5. He lost, like, almost all his matches, and now he's winning almost all his matches at 4-0.

Carolyn: 2:40

And so the advice he gave me is like play now so that two years from now you're rolling people Exactly. You may miss the shots now, but play so that you will eventually win. Yeah, and then what was the other thing he did? Oh, and he also reminded me too. He said you probably aren't, because there's a part of me that's like am I getting worse? And it's just, I'm playing better people and so they're making me hit that extra ball.

Carolyn: 3:07

There's a little stuff where they're not just randomly hitting it out the way I randomly hit it out.

Erin: 3:12

And how many times are we on a court that we say we made the right shot or we made the right decision, we just couldn't execute it? I feel like I've learned a lot about tennis and I know a lot about tennis, but I can't actually execute what I know because my skill level isn't there yet. But if we keep at it like that's why we take lessons and clinics and keep playing matches and play for fun, because we will get there, but we can't expect it to be overnight, you know, and especially right, right, when you get bumped up, we're now at the bottom of the totem pole in the, you know, in the rankings, right? So we went from being at the upper echelon and like being able to win everything. That is why we get. That's why we got bumped, because you know, now we're in the next level and so I had I've told you this before and I may have even said it on this podcast, but I thought it was really funny.

Erin: 4:00

Right after I found out, right after you and I got bumped, I talked to another friend of ours that are a friend of mine, that has been a 4-0 for a while, and she said oh, congratulations, I saw that you got bumped up from a 3-5 to a 4-0. And I said Thank you, I'm really excited. And she said Welcome to Loserville. And it made me laugh and I think about it every time I'm on the court.

Carolyn: 4:23

And she's so right, yes, it's so true, and it's so hard and it's really hard and I mean I didn't think I was this person that had to win. But I'm realizing that maybe you know I need to think about tennis differently and enjoy it, because I am very grateful to be out there. But there is a part of me that is very competitive and I want to win. And when I lose, especially the close matches, it's really hard. And I remember one time my husband told me hey, you know, you probably play like I lost in match tie break. He said if you played that way at three five, you would have won that match. But because you played a good four, oh, you're going to lose. And um, so I'm just trying to remember that yeah.

Carolyn: 5:05

Yes, I'm trying to remember these things, but let's mark down the date and see if I am winning two years from now. Okay, but it is hard to play that way, which is okay. Let me do this stuff now that I may miss, but that I'll eventually make if I keep doing it. But it is very hard and I'm just not very good. I need to be aware that.

Erin: 5:24

I'm not very good.

Carolyn: 5:25

Welcome to Loserville I understand, need to be aware that I'm not very good. Welcome to Loserville, I understand, and that we are at the bottom of the 4.0 level, and so people that have been playing at that level for you know, 10 years, yeah, you stay at that 4.0 level for a long time.

Erin: 5:38

I feel like those 2.5 and 3.0 years you can move up quickly. You know, if you play enough, you play often enough, you can move up quickly. And then there are, you know, the 3-5 and the 4-0 years can be very, very long, which they should be really, because nobody wants to get bumped to a 4-5. Right.

Erin: 5:56

That's the end Right. Yeah, I feel like that's yeah, at least in our area. I do feel like, you know, you just kind of run out of people to play with or whatever. But I've heard a lot of people at three, five and four quit and when you and I talked about doing this episode, it made me think about those people and I wonder, I've always, you know, I've heard from people saying like, oh, it gets too serious.

Erin: 6:18

But I think two different things. One it makes me laugh because I was playing with my friend Rebecca and she said we were playing two other four ladies and it was super competitive and this was just like a competitive practice match. This wasn't even like a USTA match, and I remember her and I were just like running everywhere. I mean it was tough, and I just remember her going, man, do you remember when we were two fives and it was just so easy to win, like so hard, you know, and it makes me laugh. But the other thing that I think people, I thought people were quitting because of like bad line calls or you know it got nasty.

Erin: 6:55

You know maybe they had a couple nasty, whatever, but I think it's probably, when I think about it in this episode. I think a lot of it is like they were used to winning, yeah, and when they're not winning it's no longer fun. And recreational tennis, everyone goes into it to have fun, and if you're not having fun then you might, as you know. Then I think a lot of people are like I'm just going to quit because that's just not, I'm not getting out of it. What I wanted, and for them, having fun is winning.

Carolyn: 7:21

Yes, yes, and for me and for you, but I do think, like my husband said, it's like it's a process and he's giving me all this. You know you need to focus on the little things to get better, and that it's not play forever Do you want to?

Erin: 7:35

play for a long, long time. Yeah, yes, yes that is true.

Erin: 7:39

Yeah, then I think learning. You know, if you learn one thing every time you walk on a court, I think that's great, because if you're going to play for 30 plus years, I think it'll get boring. If we're great now and we went like I think I said that recently I'm like if we were winning all the time some other sport that we weren't good at, to have a challenge, you know, yes, yeah, cause there's like, but there's a million things in tennis. It's not just like a racket, a ball and a net, there's like strategy and the right shots and the right shot selection, and I mean there's a million things to our sport to learn and we can't know them all now.

Carolyn: 8:15

That's true. That's true. And if you're only focused on winning, you now, that's true. That's true. And if you're only focused on winning, you're not going to have much fun, because if you're at the right level, you should at least be 50-50 or around there. You shouldn't be winning all your matches, but it is a hard transition, it's a hard transition, especially if you're someone that did start as a 2-5, because obviously when you win a lot, you feel good and then you feel like you're a really good player.

Erin: 8:41

And tennis is it's minute to minute, it's hour to hour, it's day to day and it's who?

Carolyn: 8:45

you're playing against. It's always who you're playing against. Do they have the ball you don't like? Are they rated? Are they on the very high side getting? Ready to be bumped to four or five, because there's a big difference between playing someone on the very low side and someone on the very high side.

Erin: 9:00

Yeah, at all levels yeah.

Carolyn: 9:02

At all levels, yeah, yeah. And so it is good to kind of look afterwards and see, because I did. My husband was like you need to look and see what they're rated, See if it is. You know that you are getting worse. Are you playing higher rated people?

Erin: 9:16

And a lot of times I was playing people that you were playing yeah, very high rated people, and a lot of times I was playing people that you were beating me yeah, very high rated people. Yeah, you had tough, tough singles matches in the spring that I did not have because I just I just couldn't play them.

Carolyn: 9:27

But but it's still really hard to lose. I know I gotta change my mentality and people don't even like to lose clinics.

Erin: 9:34

I've heard of people like not cheating in clinic because like how much can you really cheat? But like they literally want to win clinic.

Carolyn: 9:42

You know.

Erin: 9:43

Yeah, that's how competitive they are.

Carolyn: 9:45

Yes, yes, and it's weird too. I think tennis is very I mean, at least in singles it is. So you know, one-on-one it's very. It feels very personal. Compared to any other sport I've played, that's been more of a team sport, so I don't know if that's part of it. That's a good point.

Erin: 10:04

Yep, they say playing tennis as being on being out on an Island by yourself. Yeah, you have to figure it out, you have to. Yeah, there's no coaching, unfortunately unless you're on a team.

Erin: 10:17

That's why, eric wants that rule changed. Yes, unfortunately, unless you're on a team. That's why Aaron wants that rule changed. Yes, that's why I said it that way. We're going to change Eventually. We're going to play long enough where I'm going to get that rule changed. But yeah, you are. You have to figure it all out on your own and then when you walk off, a loser you feel like a loser?

Carolyn: 10:33

Yeah, because you're either going to be a winner or a loser that day. That day you especially in singles you that day lost to this person. Thanks very much to Erin for discussing this. I think she is exactly right that if this is a sport that I want to play for a number of years, I am going to lose a lot of matches. So I need to change my mentality. We hope you'll check out our website, which is SecondServePodcastcom. Thanks so much for listening and hope to see you on the court soon.