Tennis People

How do you spice up a marriage of over fifteen years? My wife’s solution was tennis. Specifically, signing us up for a mixed doubles tournament.

This sounds innocent at first glance. But herein lies the artistry of my wife. This wasn’t just a few hours on a Sunday. Our opponents would be seven different couples over six weeks of play. Secondly, in order to participate, I would need a skill rating. To acquire a rating, multiple lessons with a tennis pro were required. With one seemingly innocent surprise, she had summarily forced me into becoming a tennis person.

For the last twenty years, tennis people have been an unknown entity. I’ve overheard their grunts and giggles from the driving range, but largely kept them at a distance. My quick adolescent tennis experience was wholly embarrassing. I lost every match, including doubles; where a series of capable partners proved helpless in their attempts to overcome my ineptitude.

In the challenge ahead, that unfortunate person would be my wife. The thought pushed my blood pressure up slightly. It wouldn’t just be me sucking out there. I would be disappointing someone with whom I share a bed each night. 

The Sicilian in her also tends to come out any time my wife receives unwanted feedback, therefore presenting a sticking point for potential team growth. If you are wondering what classifies as “unwanted,” that would be any feedback originating from me.

Yet I played along. For my one-on-one instruction, I was assigned to a chiseled marvel of a man. Though Tim hails from England, his accent and large frame have marinated in the American South long enough to often be mistaken as Australian. He’s so good-looking, so authentically nice that I spent the first five minutes of our lesson distracted by how I had fallen so far in both departments.

I may not be as agile or as pliable as I once was, but there’s no doubt my previous efforts to play tennis were greatly hampered by juvenile stupidity. Touch, positioning, strategic movement - these were unknowns to a kid who just wanted to run around smacking the mess out of the ball. It was all about proving my manliness while also impressing them ladies.

Here in our forties, pride sits on a distant shelf. Vanity loses out in favor of Hawaiian shirts and chunky shoes. So I was naturally more receptive to instruction. When it comes to beginner tennis, Tim put an emphasis on footwork as well as shot placement. There were no style points, so keep the ball in play. Statistically, you will break down a riskier newbie. 

After a second lesson, I was awarded a well-earned rating of 2.5, the lowest on offer. We were all set to start the tournament, with a one-hundred-degree afternoon match against, wait…not another couple? 

We couldn’t help but inquire as to why our first opponent wasn’t married. They responded: “We’ve learned it’s best if we play with another spouse. It keeps the heat of competition from spilling over into home life.” 

This became an often-repeated story. So many families had reached this conclusion along the way that the common term, as I learned, is “tennis divorce.” These seminal moments always occur on-court, where there are guaranteed to be witnesses.

Though both sides came out sloppy, the wife and I stuck to Tim’s advice of keeping the ball in play. Needing a tiebreaker for the win, we managed just a few less mistakes than our opponents. Team Chapman could not believe our luck. Spirits were high! 

However, during that brief stint in the car ride home, I could already see a difference in my companion. She had sports confidence, which for my wife was a brand new thing. A few hours previous, we had no chance, but now there were visions of running the table. In happiness terminology, our tennis wants were now outpacing our tennis needs. This was slightly concerning. 

On arrival for match number two, the expectation was victory. We exchanged pleasantries with the other husband/wife duo, then got down to business. This new pressure to perform took its toll, however. Silly mistakes would draw a reaction from the other spouse. Overwhelmingly, these remarks started turning negative as the match progressed. After one particularly bad run, my wife looked me dead in the face and said, “You are the reason we just lost that game.”

I’m not proud of how quickly I went from making errors on accident to committing them very much on purpose. A few I sent sailing past the baseline. The next ball went straight into the net. Oddly enough, this tantrum only served to sharpen my focus. Once I figured the message was clear, shots started landing with precision. We found our stride in the final set, holding off a comeback and staying undefeated.

Winning was cool, but we did eventually receive a little perspective in the form of three losses. Instead of a tennis divorce, we survived the remaining matches via a working on-court relationship that largely consisted of individual self reflection. And we did learn much about ourselves down the stretch: Namely, that I may be able to pull out an occasional victory, but my tennis manners could use some work.

Everyone was nice about it, but there were indicators that my on court behavior was, at times, off-putting. These bonafides were surely judging me the way I did my oafish friends who were never taught how to conduct themselves on a golf course. Throughout the tournament, I received side comments like “It’s totally fine, but just letting you know that what you did there wouldn’t be allowed in USTA play.” I may not have actually held any ambitions to participate in USTA-sanctioned activities, but these embarrassing moments left me quietly mortified. Was I ever going to fit in here?

The majority of my sins could be chalked up to “running that mouth” as a friend would say: talking to myself, pleading with shots to drop inbounds, making chit-chat with people at the net while a person is serving. I simply cannot have folks staring back at me in silence. Otherwise, I’ll only assume that they don’t like me. 

Oddly enough, I was also noted for being overly honest. While it is perfectly fine to be friendly with one’s tennis opponent, I was calling my own shots out of bounds, figuring that basic human decency would be appreciated. My wife, along with other more seasoned players, made it clear that you don’t give people that kind of slack in the crucible of competition. Let them handle their own business. 

There was one final, positive takeaway from our tournament run. Forced interactions with new people did, on the whole, make me a happier person. As much as I did not want to admit it to my wife, she had opened a needed social door for her husband. Now I was on my own to leave the nest and try on this newly formed identity. 

I started recruiting guys I knew to play. This proved shockingly easy. Many attempted to rebuff me with “Yeah, I took lessons when I was young. Not my thing, so I just hit around for fun sometimes.” 

“You’ll fit right in!” I’d say. Having recently seen an ad during the US Open, I’d close with “I know you are a guy who’s into fitness, and tennis is actually America’s healthiest sport.” It certainly didn’t hurt that most wives were eager for their husbands to join up, noting they could use more active and social outlets. Regular pairings were there for the taking every weekend if a guy was looking. 

Then came the unintended consequence of recruiting so many buddies to the sport: They started beating me, or at least making me look bad. A friend still recovering from knee surgery played me tight in singles while Tim gave a lesson next to us. Since it had been a while, the thought crossed my mind that I should show off a bit for my instructor - give him a visual of my huge progress since our last lesson.

Though still limited in his mobility, my friend was a smart competitor, improving throughout our match and putting me increasingly on the back foot. Stuck in “no-man’s land” during a long rally, I was sent running to the baseline after a smart lob went over my head. Tim, with decades of tennis mastery and ATP points to his name, had a perfect view as I found the ball, turned for a backhand, then swung with everything I had.

Contact was made, but somehow my feet were no longer on the ground. The momentum of my swing sent me airborne and backwards. I ditched the racket mid-flight, its rattle alerting all nearby courts to what came next. 

When I returned to earth, the blow was softened only by my ass, which is to say hardly at all. Still, the ball was in play. With the thought that I could still salvage some dignity, I frantically crawled across the clay, found my racket, then lunged as an easy winner sailed by. There were cries of concern behind thinly disguised chuckles. I had been reminded, once again, that some element of joy had better come from this game, because it wouldn’t be doing much for my ego. 

In keeping with the theme of humility, I finally made a date with my buddy who is the most tennis-y person around. His competition is normally limited to ex-collegiates and his wife, who is equally enthusiastic about the sport. Tennis brought them together as they ascended youth ranks in Texas. After a physically taxing warmup, where I encouraged my buddy to “play his normal game,” I surprised him by asking that we continue on with the thumping and keep score. Best of three sets. 

Up until this point, I had never been on the receiving end of top tier tennis. Skills had always been dumbed down on my behalf. But it was actually quite a hoot getting clinically torn to pieces with such mastery. I usually lose by committing the most errors, but my goal quickly lowered to simply putting a racket on the ball - thus having an opportunity to commit an error. 

When I did manage to draw out a point, nervous excitement would begin to course through my veins. It felt like there was nothing to lose, so each desperate scamper provided a kind of unexpected hilarity. If by divine providence a point fell my way, I did my best to relish the moment while keeping future expectations in their proper place. 

As the first set concluded 6-0, his spouse appeared and began to heckle him a bit. A few uncharacteristic errors were committed, proving how easily any wife can get into the head of her adoring husband. As we concluded, it was a personal high moment to be told “I’ve never seen someone have so much fun playing tennis.” 

While getting existing friends to join me for a friendly match was proving to be easy, the wife would kindly point out that my social bubble still lacked any actual expansion. I hadn’t made any net-new connections via tennis despite many hours on-court.  It was time to join a men’s league and swim in less familiar dude waters.

In my very first match, I was reminded that men behave a bit differently when their more serious tennis wives were not present. Adult beverages were consumed mid-competition. Depending on how things were going, they didn’t always get put back down after the changeover. Nobody yelled the phrase “If you’re not sure, then the ball is in!” at me. 

Once our congenial proceedings were over, I thought the four of us would have a quick debrief while packing up, then depart for our respective dad obligations. As I hustled off the court to head home, everyone else found their way to a few cold beers on the patio. 

Even though I knew the drill in weeks to come, it is uncanny how I kept finding an excuse to keep walking every single time. I was always invited to join, but deep down, maybe it was hard to accept that I was actually worthy of the tennis patio. In any case, the longer it went on, the more awkward my abstention became. “Who’s this guy who never hangs out?” I could hear them all asking.

Instead, I befriended the ball machine. My game steadily improved to the point where I haughtily reclassified myself as a 3.0 player for the following season. Prior to my first matchup, I got a call out of the blue. Though we had never met, my partner wanted to introduce himself and talk team strategy. 

On court that evening, we were unstoppable. The plan was for me to keep points going long enough for him to set up winners. I had the stamina, he had the deft touch, and together we were a well-oiled machine. Compliments flowed between us as we routed our opponents in quick fashion.

After the match, my partner didn’t ask. He simply said “We’re gonna hang out.” So that’s what we did. I followed him to the tennis patio, grabbed a beverage and watched the sun go down as other regulars joined us for conversation. It was lovely.

The next day, I got another call as the family and I were preparing to leave the house. It was my partner, calling for a debrief on the previous evening. I slipped outside to answer. 

When the wife and kids joined me a few minutes later to depart, my wife was sporting a conspicuous grin. “Girls,” she began, “it looks like your father finally made a tennis friend!”