Second Serve Tennis
Second Serve Podcast is the only tennis podcast created exclusively for adult recreational players by everyday tennis players. We are passionate about the game and our episodes are geared towards adults playing a sport in the later years of life (hence, the name “Second Serve”). This podcast discusses everything related to rec tennis. Topics include the following: advice for beginners; funny and crazy situations that happen on the court; the rules of adult tennis; and how it feels being an adult and getting your feelings hurt when you are not played in an important match. We know how it feels!
Second Serve Tennis
Double Knee Replacements to National Champion In One Year
Are you injured right now? Don't worry, it is still possible to win the USTA National Championship! We were thrilled to have Amanda back to discuss what it was like to have double knee replacements then win the USTA National Championship the next year! We also discuss her team members from her National Championship team getting bumped including a player who was bumped from 3.5 to 4.5.
We are replaying a few of our most popular episodes and this was one of them!
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Hi, this is Carolyn, and I'm here with Aaron, and we're really excited to have Amanda back with us. Amanda is the captain of the team that won the national championship for 3-5 for both 18 and over and 40 and over, and when we were talking to her last time, she mentioned that she was hurt the year before she won the national championship. I believe she had both her knees replaced or she had surgery. What exactly did you have, amanda?
Speaker 1:I had two full double knee replacements.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow, okay. So we want to learn all about that and hear your story and how you decided to do that. Then win a national championship. But first we want to congratulate you, because we just saw that you got bumped and then what you were telling us before the podcast started that some of your teammates got bumped too. Yes, pretty much.
Speaker 1:Um, majority of our team moved up at some stage. We did have I had two 3.0s that, uh, actually double jumped um to four. Wow, and they were computer rated before. Um, the rest of the 3.0s that were on the team did jump up to 3.5. Um, but the the biggest one was we did have a 3.5 computer rated that double jumped to 4.5.
Speaker 2:Whoa Amazing, that's crazy. Ever heard of that before, erin?
Speaker 3:No, I have not. And listen, I would be so mad if I skipped the 4.0 category, like all those years at 4.0, right, wow, was she bummed? Was she excited? She's really excited about the challenge.
Speaker 1:However, here. I don't know how it is there, but the 4.5 is very limited. There's not a lot of teams, so that's the only downside to it, but I know she's super excited. She's probably supposed to be there. That is her level, so I'm bummed she can't be on my 4.0 team, but I'm happy for her that she's playing where she probably should be.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's interesting that you say that there's not as many 4.5s to play with in the area. I would think in your area. So Amanda's in Florida. She plays out of the National Tennis Center. That's your home court right the.
Speaker 3:National Tennis Center. I would think there would be a ton of people here. We find it like depending on the club you know there's some clubs that there's a lot of four fives if it's a large club. Our club has no four or five women and one four or five man who finally no men who finally was, after years, able to knock himself down to a 4-0. So he's very happy because he really couldn't play other than mixed and you know combo, he couldn't really play out of our club. So he's very excited. But yeah, we have a really small club.
Speaker 1:I'm just shocked that Florida doesn't have a bigger group. Yeah, I don't know why it is, but even for, like the USTA leagues, the day leagues I mean, there's definitely not any night leagues that I know of, but the day leagues only seem to have two to four teams in the actual league, and then, whereas 4-0 has six to eight teams in the league, so it does the pool of players is a lot smaller. The pool of players is a lot smaller.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it is the same thing here, for sure. So real quick just to finish up the ratings thing, because Carolyn and I jumped on this week. We were going to do something else and we're like we have to talk about the ratings and so we just did a quick special edition. You know, kind of put it out midweek, which is not our normal time, but were you, was everyone up at midnight, was it like Christmas or you know?
Speaker 1:whatever kind of holiday people celebrate, looking at their phones to see if people got bumped or not. Yes, we, I. There were a lot of people. I believe that were up refreshing Um cause we didn't get the email until like midway through the day, but everybody was up refreshing the the USDA page.
Speaker 3:Um, yeah, I tried it 1159 on my phone and I was like, oh, and then literally at 12 o'clock I could see it kind of spin a little bit slower and I'm like, oh, it's happening, it's happening, that's cool, that's great.
Speaker 2:Well, we can talk to Amanda all day about ratings, but the reason we had her back on was because of her injury. So can you tell us a little bit about, like, what happened? So I guess it's an injury you've had for a long time, or can you tell us a little?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I grew up playing soccer. I played soccer through college, kept playing soccer even after college. I played like on a women's league pretty competitive women's league up till I was about 30. And at that point my knees were just really. I never had any ligament issues, never tore anything. I just had a lot really bad arthritis in mainly my left knee, but it started to get worse in my right knee as well. So I saw orthopedic surgery when I was about 30.
Speaker 1:And I tried different treatments. I did the gel injections, I did the cortisone shots For 10 years. We pretty much tried everything. And then inevitably he was like listen, you know, you're gonna have to have it done at some point. We can do it now, you can get some life out of them, and then you'll have to have it done again, most likely, or you can continue to be in pain and not be able to do what you want to do. So at that point I said let's do it. I was a candidate for doing both at the same time because I was in pretty good shape. So I would rather have one recovery. So I decided let's go for it. One recovery. I get 25, 30 years maybe out of them, so I can continue to do what I want to do now.
Speaker 3:Which is win championships.
Speaker 2:I didn't expect that the next year? Yeah, that's.
Speaker 3:Right, right, right. Yeah, she won it the next year for two teams, not just one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, can you tell us how long you were out for?
Speaker 1:I did a lot of prep for it. Um, starting the beginning of 2020, I knew at some point mid to late 2020, I wanted to have it done. I was shooting for August. I honestly did plan it around tennis season, which is crazy to think about now, but yes, I did. I tried to plan it when I would not miss as much tennis as possible. So, without knowing that COVID was going to hit in March of 2020, I had planned to do it in August, started doing a lot of training. He told me you know, strengthen certain muscles, upper body strength, just to be prepared for it. And then COVID hit in March. So I actually moved the surgery up to basically the first available as soon as they opened up elective surgeries. So I had my surgery at the end of June. I was in physical therapy for eight weeks. So I was, I was not allowed to do any running, no court time, anything like that for eight weeks. And then I believe I took my first lesson like a private lesson, just to start moving again right at nine weeks.
Speaker 3:Wow, and how'd you feel at that first lesson, other than maybe feeling rusty, yeah, and how did your body feel?
Speaker 1:um, my reaction time was sorely lacking uh, for better words like I was really nervous about, you know, the quick steps that you have to make in tennis. Um, the sudden knee, change directions, stuff like that was made me very nervous. I think I was more nervous than actually in any pain or soreness or anything. It was just I was really nervous about it. So I started really slow. At about 12 weeks I actually started to move a little bit more on the court, like for doubles.
Speaker 1:I started to play a couple of points and then at 13 weeks I played my first match, which was not USTA or anything, it was just a women's league team match and that was right at 13 weeks out.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love that. You love tennis so much that you wanted to schedule your surgery around your seasons, because I think a lot of people that will listen, that are super passionate about tennis, will understand that it would sound crazy to anyone on the outside world, but it does definitely make sense to you know, those of us that really, really love the game. But so while you were out I'm assuming that a lot of your friends still played through COVID because, like we were able to, since it was, you know, it's a safe sport we were outside as long as we stayed away from each other. But how did you feel about being out? You know, not only away from the game and just hitting a tennis ball, but it's way more than just hitting a tennis ball. It's about being with your friends, and I know you've made really good friends. So how did that? What did you do with yourself? Were you lonely? You know how did that all?
Speaker 3:go Did they check in on you.
Speaker 1:Yes, my friends are great. You know we did a lot of During COVID before my surgery. We would get together and do late night tennis matches out on the tennis court stuff like that, just to kind of socialize what we could during COVID.
Speaker 1:So I honestly still met up with them, just sat on the sidelines, watched them play. When the teams came back in, I was still captain, so I still went to all the matches, still did all my captain duties. It was really fun. It was I felt like I was involved without being on the court. So I still did all the captain duties I was. It was about four weeks into the season when I started playing matches again, so there was about a month where I just I just went to matches and watched all my teammates.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's good. I should have done that. I've had some minor injuries. Where I've taken like the most I took off was three months. Carolyn and I both took off about three months right At the beginning of the pandemic because her and I each had separate you know, different injuries. I had an elbow issue and she had a foot issue. So we took three months off and started a podcast, which that was fun. But when I was injured in the past I really like just sat on my couch and was very lonely. You know, I didn't go. Maybe the key to recovery getting through it is to still go to your friend's matches and um, you know that sort of thing. But um, I ended up taking up like really bad daytime TV instead. So I I think Amanda's method is much better for recovery.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Cause I was lonely too when I got hurt. I was really lonely and I realized, like such a you know, so many of my friends are through tennis and my social outlet is through tennis and I didn't really realize that until I got injured and I wasn't going anywhere or doing anything. So I think that's great that you still captain and did everything with your team.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I would have. I would have gone crazy if I'd have been home and even just doing regular workouts without being on the tennis court. I would have gone crazy. It's it's also that socialization for with tennis, like they are my best friends, so I know if I find there, I'm still, you know, hanging out with the team. So that was the best, that was the best part about it, and it was nice to actually watch matches too.
Speaker 2:I don't get to watch a lot, so it was nice to watch my friends play. What advice would you give to other players that are maybe injured right now? What?
Speaker 1:advice would you give to other players that are maybe injured right now? Definitely don't rush the recovery. You know the doctors will give you like a time frame and everybody's different. You know they give you kind of a ballpark and they're like don't compare your surgery or recovery to anybody else. You know you're on your own pace. Also, the physical therapy was huge. I've never done physical therapy before. I've never been injured in a way that I needed to do any kind of physical therapy. But they give you those exercises for a reason and they really do work. So, like I religiously follow the exercises and I think that's that's the biggest key thing to coming back as quickly as I did was just doing all the exercises they told me to do.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we had someone on that actually had a full hip replacement and what we talked about with her was, yeah and um, I mean she came back also very quickly, very, you know she was in great shape, but her motivation was, like tennis is her mental health, and so her motivation was to really to get back out on the court. And I think we talked about Carolyn with her, that you know to, if you're not striving for something, you know it's a little bit tough to want, you know, go into surgery and then motivate yourself to do all those exercises. You sound, amanda, like you were very determined. You were going to be, you know, a great patient and do all your exercises religiously, because you knew that you had something big to come back to. That was, you know. So that's like this great sport that we do.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I mean and that's kind of what got me through is knowing that at the end of this I would be in better shape than I was before, I would be in no pain, and that was the big thing, because I was in a lot of pain Every time I had a tennis match. After a tennis match, I'd be icing my knees, I'd have, you know, issues for a day or so. So the fact that I have no pain now after a tennis match, I can play multiple matches in a day, so that was that was huge. So I mean, just that alone made it worth going through all of that for the outcome that I got.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and we have to play the sport until we're in our 80s, so we have a lot of stretching and exercising to do. I'll be on my second replacement by then to do.
Speaker 2:I'll be on my second replacement by then, that's right. Thanks again to Amanda for speaking with us. I really liked her advice that you should stay involved with your team even when you're injured. We hope you check out our website, which is SecondServePodcastcom. You can listen to all of our episodes directly from the website by searching the topic you're interested in. We also have information about ratings, rules, tennis gear and more on our resources page. Thanks so much for listening and hope to see you on the court soon.