Annoying Situations On The Court (Part 2)

If your opponent hits winners during warm up, does it bother you? What if your opponent throws or breaks their racquet? 

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

Dave and Tom are back to discuss more annoying situations! They are both NTRP 3.0s, who have been to states and sectionals numerous times.  It was interesting to see the differences in what bothers women versus men.

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Transcript

Carolyn 0:06

Hi, this is Carolyn and I'm here with Erin. And this is part two of our episode with Dave and Tom discussing annoying situations that happen on the court. In part one, Dave and Tom go through things that annoy them. And in this episode, I go through a whole list of things that I think are annoying. And then I want to check to see if they're annoying to Erin and to men. So here it is.

Erin 0:27

Do you have a list of annoying things, Carolyn? I want to hear your list. Oh, yeah, I made a list. Do you make okay? Are you is your list about other people or about yourself or about your partner?

Carolyn 0:38

Perhaps about your partner maybe played with recently? No. Okay, I just have like a bunch of things real quickly and I'm bracing myself. Because when I think of annoying things, and then I want to hear from a man's perspective, does this bother you at all? Okay, first hitting winners during warm-up.

Dave 0:57

Absolutely. That's the only way Dave warms up. So and then I mess up. So annoying. But I mean, it's like so when you over.

Tom 1:06

So let me ask you a question. When you say warm, when you get on the court and you're warming up with your opponents.

Carolyn 1:10

Yes.

Tom 1:12

So to me, the worst warm-up that I really hate is the what we call baby tennis.

Carolyn 1:16

Baby tennis, yeah.

Tom 1:17

Those shots that you're never gonna hit during a real match. Yes. I'd rather um see somebody's best shot than in those shots I'm never gonna hit. So I don't think I would get annoyed now if somebody drop shots me during warm-up. That happened. That's annoying. Yep.

Erin 1:31

Yes. But hitting winners, that means you can't have any flow. There's no like baseline to baseline. I've had that happen. It's annoying. I'm gonna say yes to that one, Carolyn. Okay.

Carolyn 1:41

So in the net maybe no, you pop it up and you come running up to the net.

Dave 1:46

And are you supposed to just gently hit it back in a warm-up? In a warm-up.

Erin 1:52

Well, I mean, if you've watched a warm-up, because we're just like the pros. Remember, we're just like the pros, adult rec tennis players. You know, they do baseline to baseline, and then they come up and they hit volleys, and but they're not like yeah, they're it's it's cooperative.

Carolyn 2:06

Um, oh, I have throwing rackets. I don't like it when my opponent throws the racket, it makes me feel really awkward. Yeah, me too.

Tom 2:14

Yeah, I mean, I've seen people throw it at the net. Yeah. And I've seen people miss the net and throw it across the court to the other side. That's really bad. Yeah, I mean, that's the other thing I don't like, and I will say I've done this before, is when someone does a drop shot and you run in to get it and you can't reach it. So on the second bounce, you nail it into the net. Um I did that out of frustration. Out of frustration on a reason if I missed the net, I could I could hit this guy.

Dave 2:42

So I try I try not to do it, but it's just that that happened in a pro game where uh got mad, hit the ball, and hit the rest. I was out of the tournament. Yep.

Erin 2:52

Do you have do you have going along the same lines though, Carolyn, do you have matches with men? Because, you know, I mean, everyone can any any person can have a temper, but I've had played very few matches against women where they've actually like beat their rackets on like the fence or yelled at themselves. I know, you know, I hear that all the time in in tennis, but have you played against people that like you know either hit the net or hit the back fence with their racket or just throw an all-out hissy fit, I guess?

Carolyn 3:20

Yeah, I've had women throw down their rackets and then it just feels awkward. I don't know. Like then I'm like, really? Are you getting that upset? But I feel like a lot of times men don't men don't care if they do that. I mean, it's like they don't throw it over at them, but if they throw it down, it's kind of like I know Mike says he never cares if um his opponent takes his racket and throws it on the ground. That does not bother him at all.

Tom 3:40

Yeah, I guess I'd actually welcome it, right? Because it's mentally they're losing. Because you know they're frustrated. That's another advantage you have over them, right? So whatever shot you did that made them do that, try it to do it again and do that again.

Erin 3:53

I say that now, playing years later, but when I played as a 2-5 and a 3-0, it used to make me feel really uncomfortable. But I'm with you now. It's like now they're frustrated. Now's the time to go in and finish this.

Tom 4:03

Yeah, have you ever had anybody actually break a racket slamming on the ground?

Erin 4:07

No, no, not in a match.

Tom 4:09

I think that's more of a men's thing. I think one guy actually do that and and just keep beating this poor racket until there was nothing left of it. And he just went and dropped it in the trash and grabbed another one and came out and played.

Erin 4:22

No, I play with the same two rackets that I've had since I started playing tennis almost 10 years ago. So I've never hit my racket hard enough. Yeah, I literally have my original rackets.

Dave 4:32

As long as we're still paying for them, we're free and it takes exactly.

Erin 4:35

That's why I'm like, when I heard that story, that guy just threw away like a two or three hundred dollar racket.

Carolyn 4:40

You know, yeah, yeah. And this goes to it again. This is um your opponent talking to themselves a ton. Like, this is more for singles for me. Does that bother you when they're like, oh, I should have done this, or oh, or they get mad, any of that?

Tom 4:54

No, no, no, no. If I can't tell if they're talking to me or talking to themselves, because I did have that happen once. Yes, where I kept asking, what? What uh nothing, I'm just I'm talking to myself. That is annoying.

Carolyn 5:08

Yes. We had I played someone and she kept calling herself stupid. Yes, like she would call herself stupid, but now because of that, her name's not Sarah, but let's say her name's Sarah. She'd be like, Oh, that's so stupid, Sarah. And she said it so many times that now every time I go to play her, Erin is like, Did you play stupid stupid? She would call it herself.

Dave 5:33

Yeah, well, along that line, Carolyn, um, kind of related, is it's really easy when you make uh a shot that doesn't do what you want it to do, to say, oh, I'm sorry to your partner. That's okay. Yeah. Guess what? Yes, that means every point somebody's apologizing. Right? Yeah. No. And Tom and I set that under the rule. No, forget about it. No, there's no sorries here. Yes. You know, we're all trying, we're all, you know, adult recreational tennis, it doesn't matter. And you know, if you stop trying, then then that's one that's an issue. But if we're all trying, we're gonna mess up and let's celebrate our victories and not focus on the the failures.

Erin 6:18

I agree. That's a bad habit that so many people have that I I feel like we all need to break. Yeah, we're all gonna fail.

Tom 6:25

So I have one curing for your own shot.

Carolyn 6:28

Oh like come on, like that sort of thing.

Tom 6:32

No, you hit a good shot, it's a winner. Yeah. And you sorry, Dave. And you celebrate, and you get a little, woo-hoo, you know, I don't you're down 5'1.

Erin 6:46

Right. Come on. And then that actually wait, I do have a story about that. That did happen. It made me feel really uncomfortable. I was playing a singles match years ago, and the woman next to me was down. I mean, she wasn't winning any any games. You know, it was six, let's say it was 6-0 five something, five, you know, 5-0, 5-1 or something. And she hit a shot that hit the top of the net. You know, she hit a baseline shot, it hit the top of the net and it trickled over. And she maybe won that game on that trickle, and she celebrated as if she won the match. I was embarrassed for her. She didn't care. And she said, Nothing has gone my way tonight. I'm celebrating that. And I was like, It's a little weird, but go you.

Dave 7:29

Yeah, let her celebrate her victory.

Erin 7:31

Yeah, she celebrated that victory, but it was a little like she really celebrated that trickle over the net point where most of us are like, sorry. Yeah. If we just say, don't say sorry.

unknown 7:42

Nothing.

Erin 7:43

Yes.

Carolyn 7:45

Um, let's see, what else do I have? I've got a lot.

Erin 7:48

I love that she has this long list.

Carolyn 7:50

Throw this. Erin actually brought this up, and I had never really noticed it before, but I'm noticing it more now when we play, is that they'll just throw the balls at you randomly over the net. Like they don't wait for you to catch them, they throw them in random places. Do you know what I'm talking about, Erin, where they just take the balls and yeah. I feel like it happens more.

Erin 8:08

Like, no, like if for instance, I think it happens more if like you just broke their serve. If if they won their serve, then they're happy and then they hand you the ball. Like if you're not on a changeover and it's you know, you're staying, you're staying on your side and and it's hard to observe, then they'll nicely hand them.

Carolyn 8:26

Or they tell them directly to you. Yeah, right.

Erin 8:29

Or yeah, but usually it's out of frustration. If someone has lost their serve, they literally just chuck the balls on the other side, they don't care where they land, you know, they just get frustrated. I think it's out of frustration.

Tom 8:40

That would definitely uh annoy me. The other thing that that COVID has changed that really used to bother me is when you're doing the changeover, not handing the balls to the person, dropping them on the court. That that used to really bother me. You know, like so you're not good enough. I'm not good enough that you're gonna hand me the balls, you're gonna make me bend down and pick them up. But now with with COVID and you know that period we went through where people were so afraid and they bring free cans of tennis balls so that you didn't have to, you know, touch touch something else. Um it doesn't bother me as much, but that's annoying.

Carolyn 9:12

Okay, my next thing is let's see, uh, when someone slowly goes to get the ball and you feel like it's some sort of strategy.

Tom 9:21

Annoying. So the other part of that is um somebody hits a ball to the other court or over the fence or something. You still got two balls. Finish finish the game, don't go wandering off the court to go pick up a tennis ball.

Erin 9:36

Yes. Sometimes they're just slow, but sometimes you're right, Carolyn. It is strategy, and you can tell when it's strategy, and that is annoying.

Tennis Etiquette and Annoyances

Carolyn 9:44

And that's it, kind of the next one is the same thing, which is like someone taking forever to serve.

Tom 9:49

I'm not the fastest server in the world, so I uh usually not a problem.

Dave 9:55

I mean everybody's got their own little root routine, and you allow them to do that. You know what's almost more offensive is when somebody walks up there and they do that little quick serve. And also you didn't see them bounce the ball three times and swing their arms a couple of times, they just it's like whoa! Not expecting that.

Erin 10:16

Um and that's also strategy. Yeah, like speed it up, yeah.

Tom 10:20

Like an underhand serve or something, very similar. So if I'm serving to you and I obviously serve it out, what do you do with the ball? I really annoys me. I don't know why that annoys me so much, but catch it, hit it behind you, let it go back to the fence, let's keep going. But you know why I hit it back?

Erin 10:43

I probably hit it back 85% of the time. And I'll tell you why, because a lot of times they're fat, they're quick serves.

Tom 10:51

And so I'm just if you're not sure it's in or out, you have to hit it back.

Erin 10:54

Yeah, or if it's really fast, even if it's bad, you know, I might just be saying, but I do it's a that's a bad habit, and then I say I'm sorry, and then I get mad at myself for saying I'm sorry because I didn't I didn't do it to annoy somebody, I did it out of habit and out of muscle memory and whatever else.

Tom 11:08

But because I'm in my routine, I missed my first serve, I'm thinking about what I want to do with my second serve. Now I gotta worry about this ball. Now it's my responsibility to worry about the ball, right? Um or they hit it so far over, now I've got to run over and get it.

Dave 11:20

But here's the other side of that. If somebody serves me the ball, and it's first of all, it's not out until it's called out, right? So if it's if it's three feet out, it you know, but also if you take a swing at it, it's just you you just got that much more practice on returning serves.

Tom 11:40

And I'm here to help you practice during this.

Dave 11:43

Absolutely, absolutely, and I'm gonna take all I can during a match. I love that. That's awesome. But the thing is, if it's six inches out, you know, now it is you know, a few inches out or whatever, it's it's not out until it's called out. Yeah. We've all played balls that were out. Um yeah.

Carolyn 12:02

Okay, and okay. My next one is saying come on after someone like they hit you, and then they are like, Yes. Or or a spectator cheers when something like that happens.

Dave 12:15

I've never had it happen to me. You play with evil people.

Carolyn 12:18

I know.

Erin 12:23

Yes. That's what I was saying. We've done it in practice against our friends just as a joke because it's funny, but never in a match.

Carolyn 12:32

I've had people cheer when I got hit.

Erin 12:34

Wow. Wow. Wow.

Dave 12:37

I I couldn't even imagine. It's like an immediate apology if it just kind of comes out.

Tom 12:44

Yeah. And like Erin, you were saying, right? It's different if you're playing with friends for fun. Dave and I are are are are playing with other other guys on the courts, and he and I end up on the opposite sides of the court. It is you try to hit each other. We are absolutely guaranteed trying to hit each other.

Dave 13:00

And if we miss, we apologize.

Carolyn 13:06

Oh, that's great. It bothers me if my opponent is mean to their partner. Yes. Does it bother you guys? No.

Dave 13:15

No, I actually love this.

Tom 13:17

I love to see when they start bickering with each other. That's a that's a great sign. It's advantageous.

Erin 13:23

Think of it that way.

Carolyn 13:24

And this is my last one. I won't, I mean, I probably have a bunch more, but I I know you guys have other things to do tonight. But um, people who don't call the score.

Tom 13:33

Oh yeah. Drives me crazy. Absolutely drives me crazy. Um, and and I so if someone's you know they're about ready to serve and they haven't called the score, can you yell at what's the score?

Erin 13:45

Can you I think you can ask them, yeah. Yeah, it's just and then and then they get upset that you're asking them a question, but they didn't say the score to begin with, right? That's annoying. Yeah.

Dave 13:56

But the other thing, there's two things I noticed. Some people will mumble the score. Yes, yes. And you're outside, there's a freeway and trains and planes going. Yeah. Yeah. Um, or the other thing is if their score is behind, if they're losing, rarely will they say the score. Now, if they're winning, you know. It's real loud.

Erin 14:24

It's really mumbled.

Dave 14:27

Or not that's so true.

Carolyn 14:28

Thanks again to Tom and Dave. Even though I know there are things that annoy me on the tennis court, I'm probably doing a number of things that annoy my opponent, including one thing that we discuss in the next episode that I have no intention to annoy my opponent, but my husband informed me I definitely was doing that. We hope you check out our website, which is secondservodcast.com. You can listen to all our episodes directly on the website. And under the resources tab, we've listed the rules and the websites we go to to check people's ratings. Thanks so much for listening and hope to see you on the court soon.