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
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!
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Hi, this is Carolyn and I'm here with Aaron, and this is part two of our episode with Kana. Kana 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.
Speaker 3:So what do you have like a crazy, a good, crazy story? People love crazy stories on the podcast.
Speaker 1:Well, I guess you know, like I said, there was a lot of fighting I got into. You know, in 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. You're either tied or someone is up by two.
Speaker 1:Um, if you're tied, then you go into a tie break at two hours on the dot you say final point, sudden death. And that's it. And you know, I saw a lot of. You know people, if you are up to, all of a sudden you start to play very slowly, hoping to drag the clock out. Yeah, and someone. So that was a lot of fighting, that 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 won and technically she was right, but you know she had really just bickered with them for 15 minutes. Yeah, basically, and so you know the 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.
Speaker 3:Oh my goodness, what did you?
Speaker 2:say Like bye, I'll see you guys later.
Speaker 1:I was standing on the service line. I'm like I don't want anything to do with this here. 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 your partner.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, and what Kana? What level would you say this is at? Just to give us something comparable to USDA, I would say it was like a 3-0, 3-5, 4-0, 4-5.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:So all those levels To the teams, yeah, gotcha.
Speaker 1:Probably are probably comparable. Yeah, you know yeah.
Speaker 2:What if someone had to go to the bathroom? Are you allowed to go to the bathroom? Yeah, you can go to the bathroom between sets.
Speaker 1:Okay, only between sets.
Speaker 2:And are you timed? Yeah?
Speaker 1:Um no, but I'm sure, if I think, that if you took an extraordinary amount of time, you know and maybe there are people who would time.
Speaker 1: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 what I mean Like very kind of type A, you know, and then had stayed with the kids, very successful and decided to take up tennis and then decided to do this league, and so they were serious. It was no joke.
Speaker 2: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, compared to like you got to get it all out there and yeah, I find night league is a little more relaxed.
Speaker 1:I think people who are working and they're just trying to be there to have fun.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, they just want to have a drink.
Speaker 3:Sometimes they drink during tennis yes, yeah 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 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 going to go out on a tennis court and argue with people, but it is a competitive sport and so people get. Like you said, kiana, it's like they were probably successful in life and they're going to be successful.
Speaker 3:Yes, 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 going to 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 one. 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 the next one. They won that point and they're like oh, they won.
Speaker 1:I was like I shouldn telling my husband 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've talked about replacing the captain because people were unhappy. I mean like, yeah, you know, that's pretty intense. I can't imagine that happening here. You won't find that in Raleigh.
Speaker 1:If you do, it would be the rarest story 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.
Speaker 2:Yes, you know.
Speaker 3:Carolyn flat out refuses to do it because she's heard too many stories now especially since we've been doing this podcast.
Speaker 2:You couldn't pay me to be a captain. Yeah, no, and this isn't a nice area.
Speaker 1:For the team. If someone missed the team meeting, we would vote them in as the captain.
Speaker 2:That's a good way to get full attendance, so mad.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a good way to get full attendance.
Speaker 1:So in the summer we played 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 per one of the partners wasn't there, so we're warming up the three of us and she said sorry, my partner's 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, you basically. So this blonde woman in a Ferrari convertible comes like racing down the road and you know, so she, you know 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 um, 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 master's from Princeton. She was able to drop that in somehow.
Speaker 3:In the first 30 seconds.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so we're playing and she said 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 had she was a little younger, so maybe like her kids are sick or you know, and and phone usage was super like you couldn't do it. People are really down on that and so I, but I said, of course, like if you have an emergency, please feel free. So she's, you know, talking on the phone longer maybe than she should, but you know, whatever, and they, they killed us. And afterwards at these things, you always have lunch with the other team which we don't hear.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's strange to me. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Always have lunch with the other team. But this is where Trump, like art, 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 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.
Speaker 1:And so after we're done, she says I'm really sorry I can't stay for lunch, but you know I have to go home and deal with this emergency. So, you know, I was like, yeah, of course. And she were eating lunch afterwards with the teams and and she shows up and I said, oh, you know, 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, and that was their emergency. And I was like, oh, Of course.
Speaker 3:Of course, quite the emergency.
Speaker 1:That is quite a problem. I know it's quite a mess.
Speaker 3:So going off the lunch after it would probably, I mean we're already in a funny area. Yeah, super awkward.
Speaker 1:Super awkward.
Speaker 3:So what we do here is we leave matches and then we proceed to call our friend, Like Carolyn and I call each other immediately and are like you're never going to believe what happened in my match, yeah, 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 with our team and we look to make sure that the other team is gone before we start saying, oh my gosh, I don't know what happened in my match.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but here you're, like eating lunch with these people that you just played.
Speaker 1:Yes Again, and a lot of times it could be super acrimonious. Right Like. These are clubs that you know might've threatened someone, might've threatened to beat up your partner, right.
Speaker 2:That was a chicken salad. Curse you out.
Speaker 1:Right, and then now you're eating lunch together. Super awkward.
Speaker 3:That is odd yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 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.
Speaker 2:I kind of like that.
Speaker 3:I kind of I know that 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 Carolyn and I are always like let's plan this day, but it's almost more important. Like, can we have lunch after? Is there food involved? Like that part, I like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but that's not fun, no, and 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 just threatened to beat me up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, can you take a to-go box of food? Do you guys have a to-go box? Because I got to get out of here and deal with the chandelier.
Speaker 2: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 court soon. Outro Music.