Annoying Situations On The Court

Have you ever had something annoying that happened on the court?  What did you do? 

Dave and Tom are back to talk about annoying situations that happened to them.  They are both NTRP 3.0s, who have been to states and sectionals numerous times, and have had a few annoying situations.

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Transcript

Carolyn 0:10

Hi, this is Carolyn and I'm here with Erin. And we really appreciate Tom and Dave coming back on the podcast to discuss annoying situations on the court. We would love to hear from them what they think is annoying, especially from a man's perspective. So, Dave, can you start us off and tell us what you think is annoying on the tennis court?

Dave 0:29

Well, thanks for having us back. Um, yeah, you know, the most annoying thing that happens to me is when the opponent shows up.

Erin 0:38

Right. I just want to default in court. I was hoping nobody would show and we would just get a default win.

Dave 0:46

That's awesome. Just kidding, because we we love to play. I can tell you um the annoying things can come from multiple sources. Okay, you got annoying potentially the audience or standby people, the opponents can be very annoying, and lastly, your partner can be really annoying.

Erin 1:06

We've had that episode. Yep.

Dave 1:09

Yeah. Well, and I've been the annoying partner. First of all, you have to understand your partner. And if it's a new person that you haven't played a lot with, you know, there's a there's a relationship on the on the your side of the net with with your partner, right? Uh Tom and I have played a lot, and and we've pretty much learned that we can say whatever we want, and not, you know, we don't coach each other, we don't, you know, that. But it's like, so one time I'm trying to be very aggressive at the net, and I think he served, and the ball comes back, and I decide I'm poaching. And I fly like a gazelle through the air. I'm horizontal about six feet up, really small gazelle. And I hit the ball because I'm totally I had come from the ad side of the net all the way over to the do side, probably for a return that he could have easily got with his forehand. But somehow I decided I was poaching that ball, and of course I throw it into the net and I hear, why the blank did you do that? Okay, so now for Tom, he's ready for the next point. But for me, it's in my head. I'm thinking, Oh, I really did something stupid. Now my partner's mad at me. Oh, I gotta make, you know, but you know what I learned because we've played together, he doesn't even remember saying that. And and two minutes later, I I mean, we're just on to the next point. And so just because somebody says something that might be a annoying or offensive or or in your head doesn't mean that it means anything big to them, you know. So this game's so mental, right? How about you, Tom?

Tom 2:54

Yeah, so I guess um for me, it was actually an opponent. And I don't like to talk badly about opponents, but and so I won't really even talk about the situation we were in. But we were in it, we were playing, and uh my partner was serving, and um he served, the guy returned it, I was at the net, I put it away. And the person that wasn't on the receiving end said, wait, stop. That was a foot fault. You guys don't get that point. That was a foot fault. And I looked at him, I said, A foot fault? You you you don't get to call footfaults, right? From there. It doesn't work. And he was just insistent that it was a foot fault. He's been doing it all day, you know, it's foot fault. And it happened to be in a situation where there were direct tournament directors there. Um, so I said, Look, we'll just call one of them over. And um he proceeds to berate this poor woman uh about and and and she said, I don't even know, right? I don't I don't know what the answer is, but she went to the to the club pro who was giving a lesson, who took his time to come over and answer, you know, listen. And the guy says, Now you can't you can't call foot fault. This opponent still keeps arguing, complaining about this thing. So the guy out of his, you know, picks up the phone, he calls a contact, he has a USTA tennis, and you the person asks him, Is there a you have umpires there? No. Then there is no such thing as a foot fault. Uh-huh. Yep. The guy still argues, to which point I give the guy, I give I give the pro a lot of credit. He looks at the guy and says, just remember, you're you're a guest here. Right. And unfortunately, he he didn't really back down on that. Then he looks at me and he says, Well, I want to replay the point. There is no replaying. There's no such thing as replaying a point in USTA. We don't do it. So we had finally moved forward, and and it had gotten so much into his head that next serve was to him, and he decides he's just gonna try to rip it at me in the net. Of course, he hits it in the net. And what was a relatively close match wasn't close to the match. It came up on it. He was just came undone. And then he was still talking about it afterwards, which is interesting because I don't think guys tend to do that. I I think it happens in the court and it ends, I think it's it's it's beer time, right? We're gonna talk about it. And and we might not discuss those things we didn't like that happened on the court, but we can still all sit around and joke and and have a beer and be done with it. And I don't think that's the case. You guys tell me I don't think that's the case in in women's matches.

Erin 5:14

That is not the case in women's matches. No. No. That is that woman would be dead to me. I would um tell all my friends about her and make sure that we never, you know, played in a match against her again. And yeah, no. I I love that you guys can do that, though. Have that, I mean, that's a big conflict. That guy sounded like there was something going on. He was really upset about it, you know, in addition to a foot fault. But um, but I do love that you guys can just leave it on the court, have a beer after, and move on.

Dave 5:44

And the result of this was you went back to playing, and the guy was so upset.

Tom 5:50

He lost it, he's mentally just wasn't he checked out and wasn't ready to go. I see the other thing that's a little annoying to me, when I go to play tennis, I want to play. I'm not between sets, I don't sit down. I might not get back up again, so I just stayed. So I am around, get ready to go. And when people want to talk incessantly about, you know, whatever, their job, they're this, they're that. I just want to play tennis. And and I know that's a bad thing. Even when I'm playing for fun and it's just a bunch of guys hitting, we can talk afterwards, right? When we got a couple of coolers of beer, we know we're gonna sit around and talk afterwards, save your discussion for afterwards, or on the court, let's let's play tennis. Um so if I ever had a guy tell me about his kids and grandkids, I'd really be annoyed. And then I know the women know you're you know everything about their family by the time the past is over.

Erin 6:40

Yep, some women, yep.

Tom 6:42

Dave, I'm gonna put you on the spot. A certain um serve, no serve situation that happened.

Dave 6:48

So yeah, this was not that it mattered a lot. It happened to be a tournament at States again. And it was a first serve, and I had chosen to select a slice, which is not my normal first serve, but just trying to change up the pattern. And I've been taught on a slice to really emphasize to really get that ball going, you need to kind of wrap your racket around the ball, almost like if you're spinning a basketball on your hand, right? You know, so you gotta come around and right as you hit it, circle around. Well, I did that exact motion, except I missed the ball. I went right around it, right? I never but I realized that and put my hand out and caught the ball. So now the question is did that count as a first serve? Ooh.

Carolyn 7:45

Wait, so did you hit it and miss? You went to hit and you missed it. I swung, totally you whiffed, you whiffed it. No, no, no, but you told the ball swung as bracket.

Dave 7:55

I actually caught it. So it kind of looked like I a bad toss that I caught, except I did swing. So now we made a motion swing motion. Is this uh a counter?

Erin 8:07

This is a good I feel like timeout. Should be second serve. Yeah, should be second serve. I was gonna say, I feel like this is a question for Rebel Good. Oh, I know.

Carolyn 8:16

I think if you swing and miss, it's second serve. Yeah, yeah.

Tom 8:19

We were convinced we were the rule experts. And that since he did not make contact with that serve, and since he caught it, that it wasn't truly a serve. So again, the tournament director comes over.

Dave 8:31

We well, first of all, let me back up. It so happened that both captains were observing our game.

Tom 8:37

Oh, yeah. Right.

Dave 8:39

And they're of opposite opinions. Shocking. So so honestly, I didn't really know the rule for that. I wasn't sure, but I I felt that if I caught it, it didn't count, but I I wasn't sure. Right. And now they got two captains arguing, so they go to the train.

Tom 8:55

Intently. I mean, though their other the other team's captain was just I mean, to the point of berating our captain about and I'm thinking it's it's my first serve.

Dave 9:05

It doesn't really matter because I think I'll get the second serve in. But but guess what happens? Is we go on, they check with the tournament director, and I think they checked with somebody else, even. Who then checked with the coordinator, and they said, Well, if he caught the ball, well then it's it's not a not a serve. So therefore it's back to first serve. Well, hold on. Yeah, so we I thought it was, yeah. So they said, okay, and you know, nobody's happy now, and I take my first serve over again, which whatever. I think he I think he netted it. I think I netted it too, right? But this is like 10 or 15 minutes later, right? Honestly, I didn't care that much about that serve, and I would rather have kept the momentum and all that. And so, anyhow, we found out by the end of the match, because people made more phone calls, right, that that is a wrong call. If you swing, period, that is a first serve.

Tom 10:10

It's the intent. If you if your intent was to swing and serve, you served.

Dave 10:15

Yep. And so anybody listening, be sure if you are not comfortable with your toss, do not even attempt to swing. And if you do swing and miss, it counts as a first serve.

Erin 10:27

So, Tom, are you telling us that this annoying situation, you were the annoying person in the situation?

Tom 10:33

No, I was the one facing the other way who had no idea that he's gonna be.

Erin 10:37

I'm sorry, Dave. I meant Dave. I'm sorry. I meant Dave. Dave, were you? Are you saying your opponents were annoying because they were arguing, or you were the one because you the most annoying part was this the whole thing delay the delay, yeah, 15 minutes.

Tom 10:53

Yeah. And and I'll take I'll part I'll take part of it because I was convinced I was right on the rules, right? I mean I knew I I I was 100% convinced I was right. And and when the tournament director backed me up, I was just yeah, yeah, it's great.

Erin 11:08

That's awesome. I have never heard of that happening during a match to take that long, you know, to figure out a rule in the middle. I mean, not only were you in the middle of a match, you were obviously in the middle of a game. Like you were, it was a it was be between a first and second serve, which was a good thing.

Dave 11:23

And I'll have to say I have never swung and missed before since or since or since, yes. I I mean it's it's but if he does, we know the rules.

Carolyn 11:32

We know the rule. You know what? I was gonna, we were gonna make a list of like top 10 rules that maybe recreational players should know. And so I'm gonna add that to the list. That might be a very rare number 11. That may be a bonus, yeah. Like people probably don't really need to know it because what are the odds it's gonna happen?

Tom 11:48

I mean, who would miss a serve, right? I mean, come on.

Annoying Situations and Tennis Rules

Carolyn 11:51

Only Thanks to Dave and Tom for discussing the situations that annoy them. There's a part two of this episode where I go through the things that annoy me and they seem pretty petty compared to the things that annoy them. Also, I double checked the rule from Friend at Court. It's on page 10 of the rules of tennis number 19, and it states the service is a fault if the server misses the ball when trying to hit it. If you'd like to check out Friend at Court, you can go to the resources section of our website, which is secondservodcast.com. Thanks so much for listening and hope to see you on the court soon.