54. How do you feel about hitting your opponent during a tennis match with a tennis ball?

Get set for a candid story about the lesser discussed aspects of tennis; I share my personal experience with a strategy that has divided opinions - hitting the opponent during matches. I will take you back to the time when I re-joined USTA after a break from competitive tennis, as well as tips for your doubles strategy for those who are not afraid and want to win while staying within the boundaries of the tennis rules. This episode also brings an experience of my friend Irina from Episode #11 and the wisdom our dads passed onto us about self-protection in the game. Tune in as we serve up a story from tennis that translated beyond the court.

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Transcript

Klara: 0:00

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Grand Slam Journey podcast, where we discuss various topics related to our Grand Slam journey of sports, business and technology. I'm your host, clara Gossova, and today is one of my brief episodes where I share some of my personal stories. A few months ago, I asked some of my connections on LinkedIn A question how do you feel about hitting your opponent during a tennis match with a tennis ball? The results were interesting 20% of voters were pro, 60% were against and 20% were other Other, meaning that there is more context that's needed, and some of the comments that were provided were related to if it's in the line of five player, than it's part of the game intentionally going after them, not really in their wheelhouse. Another friend of mine, a former tennis player, and my teammate Niels, mentioned it only pants.

Klara: 1:14

I play mixed doubles with my wife and I naturally tend to aim at volleyers feet If I don't have the angle to put the ball away. I believe that is absolutely fair game. However, I had several folks trying to take my head off even after I really conceded a point to them. Most of us don't play for money and winning should not come at the cost of trying to hurt someone intentionally which I agree a lot with what Niels says here Especially aiming at someone's feet. It is one of the smartest shots for a number of reasons. Number one it's really hard to hit anything else back from that low volley, and if you hit someone's foot or ankle that's really the worst that can happen. Other comments where, when it makes sense, it's okay. Just no headshots, which I found was quite funny, because if someone's intentionally aiming at your head, it actually means that they're intentionally sacrificing to hit the ball probably 2-5 meters out. One of the basic tennis rules that you learn if you play tennis is don't ever aim for the head, not even for the reasons of safety, but for the reasons of math and physics and, I guess, spatial objects. Number one head is really hard to hit and really easy to move around, and so if you're shooting at someone's head, it even means that you're totally stupid and you're also wasting the ball trying to hit it 2-5 meters out intentionally. No-transcript, actually, I don't know what the other answer is. Really, it's just not strategic. So trying to shoot for someone's head is probably not a good strategy.

Klara: 3:17

I also mentioned that I will share a story from a couple of years ago now, when I rejoined the USTA team back in the Bay Area, I met a few amazing ladies who invited me to be part of their women's doubles league. I was hesitant because I haven't played competitively for over a decade, really ever since college. Interestingly enough, one of the sports that hurt me most is tennis, and so I deal with a lot of injuries trying to keep my body together. I do love getting on the court and hitting the ball, and at the same time it comes with a really high price of pain that starts escalating to injuries that then prevent me from any other activities that I do outside of the tennis court to stay sane and be fit. So my tennis dose probably comes with one tennis session a week, which is max. Even at that, I typically start degrading my health about two to three months after regular hitting sessions, and so it requires a lot of maintenance, such as acupuncture and carpenter, to keep my body together and be able to walk and do other things without pain. So playing tennis is actually probably not the best thing for me, and it's still something that I am pondering about and am still too stubborn to give up. To get back to the story I decided to join the league because the ladies were super fun, really laid back and fun social dinners is actually something I am discovering.

Klara: 5:16

In the past couple years, I didn't really know that tennis could also be a fun social game. For me, it was always about competing and performing and improving, which. There also come challenges with that, because, getting back on the court, I realized that aging is a real thing. I'm not as fast as I used to be, I don't hit the shots as consistently and as accurately as I used to, and so going back on the court typically includes managing a lot of my own mindset and facing my ego, because somehow my head still has expectations that I should be able to get to the ball faster, I should be able to jump higher or hit it more consistently. However, with that regular practice you can't really achieve that, and so the way I look at it is actually good practice for being humble and trying to reset my expectations or establish new goals for the game, which is finding new ways, how to enjoy it and creating new friends through it.

Klara: 6:34

Back to the story. One of the matches I ended up playing it was probably after a couple months of break. I had a busy time at work. I've been recovering from several injuries, which I'm always recovering from, injuries. My tennis typically entails taking on average 4-6 ibuprofins to get through a match, and so I haven't been particularly feeling myself that day. And we played against these two ladies.

Klara: 7:08

The first set was okay. I was highly inconsistent. I'm a big hitter and so, especially when I'm tired, inconsistent and in pain, I'm not going to stand on the court and try to hit 20 balls, mainly because I'm inconsistent. So I continue to lean on my power, which is what I stress around my game, around, even back in the day. Jack has pretty good tennis and so I've always been taught to be aggressive, and obviously my body structure doesn't allow me to chase the ball 20 times 6 foot tall, probably 165 pounds and so I can't chase the ball on the court and rallies infinitely, because I will just get too tired and especially now, plus, my feet don't really hold up. So I'm trying to keep the rallies as short and quick as I can, especially when I'm in pain.

Klara: 8:09

We won the first set. Don't remember the score we got in the second set. It was getting dark, which I'm also shadow blind, so every time there is poor lighting I can't really see the ball well, and so my quality of game declines even more. My partner was receiving, she had a forehand rally and I decided to poach. The ball actually wasn't way too far from me, but because of the light, and especially bad lighting above the net, I mis-hit the volley. Add the volleyer on the opposite side, I believe. The ball hit her racket and then from that frame it went to her head. In fact, if she ducked down, the ball would likely be out, and so it was not intentional at all.

Klara: 9:02

I immediately lifted my hand up and started apologizing, and before I was able to say I'm sorry and if she's okay, she started yelling at me that I was trying to kill her and I am intentionally shooting balls at her, that she has a kid and that she's a mom, and I actually don't know what she was trying to do, other than she was trying to manipulate the game because they were losing, which she couldn't get over her own feelings, and it seems like, no matter how old people are, some people never learn how to lose. I asked the lady and her partner several times to stop yelling at me and that we can solve it after the match without drama. They wouldn't step. They kept coming to the net and yelling at me in between points, things like I'm not a mom, and I'm not really sure what they meant by it. I tried not to take it personally. There was a change over next game or next point. I made few steps towards her and I told her that if I was really trying to hit her intentionally it would look different and she should stop talking, that we ended up winning the second set although it would hardly count as a win, especially with the drama and so I went home really aggravated, trying to calm myself down. And then I got a message or a phone call I don't know if it was the same day or the day after that. The lady is writing a complaint letter about me to the USDA. And then we saw the letter and the letter had something in it Like I hid her 30 times in the back when she wasn't even looking at me and I kept hitting her intentionally. She even went so far to where she got testimonials from some of the other people I had played against that year or earlier that year how amazing player I am and that I shouldn't be playing that level and way beyond the skill set of whatever the rating was that USDA gave me and I just was beyond irritated and amazed to what degree some people are willing to go, how mean people can be, and just the craziness of people making up stories and not being embarrassed about it and sending it to someone claiming that they're true. The USDA came back with feedback that I was quite impressed by the ladies I played against, which I didn't know where, rated 4-5. This was a 5-0 leak and the USDA stated that if they're playing players that are in the 5-0 leak, they're probably better skilled than the 4-5 and so they shouldn't be hitting easy balls to where the opponent can attack them. They pretty much told them to take their complaint and go home. What all of this taught me was USDA leak is brilliant.

Klara: 12:46

For me, playing against women can be too emotional. One of the things that I really enjoyed about San Jose is my group of tennis friends. They were mostly guys. We had some ladies in the group. They were equally tough and non-emotional, but I love hitting the ball hard. I love hitting with guys that hit the ball hard and are not scared to hit it at me or at us.

Klara: 13:17

And so, going back a little bit to the strategy of tennis and hitting an opponent. Going back to competitive strategy of tennis and hitting an opponent Back when I played competitively, it actually was totally okay to aim a hard ball at the net player. We used to practice this, and we used to practice other people hitting hard at us when we were at the volleys. There's few reasons for that One. When you have a person who poaches in tennis a lot, you actually want to let them know that you're watching for them to move, and hitting the ball hard down the line gives them a signal that you're ready and it keeps them on their toes. And so, especially when you play doubles, you play against volleyer that poaches a lot. This can be a really good strategy. It can also be a really good strategy when the volleyer on the other side is very confident, and the reason for it sometimes they can get into this really good rhythm and everything is going in and they keep being more confident, and so it takes your game apart, and so hitting the ball hard at them and making them hopefully miss a couple volleys gets in their head in confidence, and so a lot of my episodes have been about tennis and strategy.

Klara: 14:49

No-transcript is a game of mental toughness and confidence, and so knowing how you feel, but also being sensitive to how your opponent may feel, and taking intentionally their confidence away and making them be worried or scared in some ways, is actually good. If you want to win and, I believe, if you're playing competitively, everybody wants to win. No one likes to lose, and so whatever you need to do that annoys your opponent and decreases their confidence and takes their game apart is a fair game. If it means going hard at them when there are the volleys, taking their confidence apart, so be it. At the end of the game, all you have to do is worry about playing based on the rules. This isn't illegal. If you want to win, you should use all the means possible within the boundaries of the game and play in order to win. That's what the best players do. This may be a bit different than when you're playing a social game. If you're playing socially, then understanding the levels of the players and what you can afford and where you can afford to hit the ball so you don't scare them, is totally fine. But again, I'm not talking about fun social tennis here. I'm talking more about competitive tennis, and so it's important to understand that nuance, it's important to understand the situations and it's important to understand the differences between playing tennis competitively and trying to be the best you can be versus playing tennis socially, although even in those instances, sometimes hitting the ball hard can be fun.

Klara: 16:45

One thing I want to add regarding tennis and hitting or not hitting your opponent. While we tennis players believe that we're tough and I'm sure there are certain levels of toughness required I would argue it's one of the safest sports. When it comes to really risking your life, the worst that can happen to you is being hit by a ball. It's not as life risking such as downhill skiing, snowboarding, biking, ufc. There's some true extreme sports where, if you make a mistake and you lose your focus, you're literally risking your life. That's not tennis. So knowing that the worst that can happen to you is being hit by a ball is really nothing serious. You shake it off, you move on and recover. One of the worst things that can probably happen is a story from one of my previous podcasts with my dear friend, irina.

Irina: 17:49

It's like imagine the worst case scenario. So live through that fear in advance of the situation. What is the worst case scenario? So I was on a tennis court when I was still only little, playing practice doubles with some older guys I think I was eight and I was at the net and one of the guys turned really hard right at me and I even doubt that that boy was aiming at me, I think it just happened. You know, he was a good serve. He sort of like reacted quickly and it just came straight into my nose, between the eyes, and the blood was everywhere. And I'm eight. So how do you go back to the tennis court after that? And that's like my death set, he's like. Well, now you know what's the worst case scenario and you survived it. Next time use your racket to protect yourself.

Klara: 18:49

If you want to hear more from her journey of sports and finance and accounting, tune in to episode number 11. Funny enough, her dad and my dad had the same advice you have a tennis racket to protect yourself with, use it. If you enjoyed this episode, I want to ask you to please do two things that would help me greatly. One, please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, spotify or any other podcasting platform that you use to listen to this episode. Two, please share this podcast with a friend who you believe might enjoy it as well. Thank you for listening.