The past couple of years I have been in a bit of a tennis funk. I’ve felt like my game has tailed off some (particularly my singles game, which I rarely play now), I haven’t had a good, consistent doubles partner, I’ve been losing regularly in league play, haven’t even bothered to enter tournaments, and my teams haven’t done as well.
This past summer, though, I got asked by a friend to join his 7.0 mixed doubles team for league play. I did and , wow, it became obvious immediately we had a very strong team. I also enjoyed not being captain for a change, while someone else expended all the energy to organize practice play and match lineups. We ended up winning our division and going on to win the Northern Oregon playoffs. At Sectionals playoffs in Sunriver we lost one match and ended up tied for first place in our group, but didn’t advance based on tiebreak criteria. Still it was an immensely successful and enjoyable team. The whole experience injected new enthusiasm into my tennis playing.
At Sunset Athletic Club (our home club) in the tennis center there is one wall where photos are hung of all the teams that have won Northern Oregon championships over the years.
If you look closely you will notice all the photos are of women’s teams . . . except one.
This is our team photo from Sunriver sectionals (including insets of three who couldn’t make it to Sunriver). I often joke to observers that our team broke the gender barrier by finally putting some men on the wall. Even though it took a mixed doubles team to do it!
One other significant note about this team/photo. It is a reflection of the international flavor of tennis players at the club, and in our community. Of the 13 players on our roster, more than half are natives of foreign countries. Each still has some detectable accent. They represent 7 countries: Vietnam, China, Russia, Malaysia, India, Korea, and Bulgaria.
Another exciting thing happened this fall. New tennis ratings came out and I was dropped back to 3.5 from 4.0. This was due to my generally poor league results the past couple of years, and particularly two bad losses at singles when, as captain, I put myself at singles since our normal players weren’t available and to avoid a default–called a sacrifice and taking a bullet for the team. Some people might be discouraged getting bumped down but I’m ecstatic. I feel like a top dog player again in my new level, and it has even injected new confidence and enthusiasm into my game. I plan to enter tournaments again, where I feel I can be more competitive than I have been.
Here is a slide show from team photos I took at Sunriver.