Tennis doesn’t have to feel exclusive or overly serious to be a real workout. In our episode (National Hit to be Fit Weekend) Michele shares the vision behind National Hit To Be Fit Weekend (May 15 to 17), a nationwide celebration that pairs National Tennis Month with a simple idea: make the court feel like a party and make it easy for anyone to say yes. Think music under the lights, big group energy, and a format that welcomes the person who has never played alongside the 4.0 who wants a sweat.

For more information on all things Cardio Tennis and National Hit to be Fit Weekend visit: http://Linktr.ee/cardiotennis

Register to host a Hit to be Fit event at: www.cardiotennisinstructor.com 

Here’s a complete transcript of our conversation with Michele:

Returning After Surgery With Red

Carolyn 0:07

Hi, this is Carolyn, and I’m here with Erin. And this is our second episode with Michele Krause. In the first one, she discussed National Hit to Be Fit weekend, and we’ll link to that in our show notes. In this episode, she tells us why all recreational players can take advantage of the red, orange, or green ball. So here it is. But I will tell you with like the red ball and the orange ball, I had to take a break from tennis um for a health issue. Right. And then I came back, I’ve had all my lymph nodes removed from one of my arms. And I came back um with the red ball. Okay. Red ball. So orange ball. And now I’m back to the regular ball and I’m fine. Never had lymphedema. Everything was great.

Why Slower Balls Should Be Normal

Michele 0:48

Okay. Because that I wanted to talk about that with the two of you. And and I didn’t know, Carolyn, like what how that progressed for you. And it makes me so happy. And this is a message that like you obviously can share because you experienced it at the foundation gala uh the other day in Indian Wells, one of the members there who couldn’t play because she was had just had a, you know, a surgery, etc. And I told her, when you’re ready to come back, when you’re ready to hit that ball, okay, please tell your coach, okay, that you need to start with red and orange. Okay, and that will save you because and most coaches don’t know this, and they just put the yellow ball out there. Okay, so whatever the health issue has been, okay, if you go back with yellow ball, okay, that ball is gonna one, it’s gonna bounce really high. Um, it’s moving faster. So in your brain, you’re like, I gotta go, I gotta move. And then you make a movement that you that one probably should not have made based upon their injury slash health situation. And now you’ve taken another step back. All right. And, you know, starting with the red ball, working more in a short cord until you start feeling comfortable with that, then go to the orange ball, add a little distance, that sort of thing. And the the gal that I was talking to, she was so grateful for that tip. You know, it had never you know crossed her mind. She probably didn’t even think about it, but she was she was so happy because she’s been doing since her surgery, she’s been doing all the right things. And Carolyn, I know I’m sure you have done all the right things as well in your journey. And you don’t want, you don’t want to have a step back. Yeah. So yay, red and orange ball. Yes. It still amazes me that we’re okay. If you look at other sports, okay, um, if if if someone in the golf world, okay, and I am not a golfer, but my husband is, okay, there are, I believe, four different T spots to tee off from. So obviously the difference is in distance. Okay. So you have that T spot that is closer to the whole. Okay, so there’s built-in things, and that’s a training tool. Okay, that’s a built-in way to make the sport easier. Okay, maybe you know, a lot of 90 plus people play golf. Okay, well, they’re not hidden off the pro tee, they’re hidden off the rookie tee. And guess what? They can still play the sport. So why we get hung up on these balls is just beyond me. All right. It’s a ball. If you are, if you have a racket and a ball and you’re hitting it, okay, then then life is good.Carolyn 3:49

I didn’t grow up playing tennis, right? Don’t kids now like there’s the orange ball tournament, not orange ball tournaments, but you use an orange ball. There’s a progression. Yeah. Yeah. Isn’t there a progression?

A Rally Challenge For Real Control

Michele 4:00

Yeah. So and the progression with kids. Yeah, the progression is red, orange, green. And and the thing is, I think what people also don’t understand is who whatever your skill level is, there’s always moments when you need to be going back and forth. Okay. There are circumstances. Well, I might be, I might be a 14-year-old greenball player, okay, but there’s gonna be skills that you’re gonna need to work on that you need to use the red or the orange for. So it’s not just like, okay, I I’ve I’ve worked my way up to yellow and I’m never gonna hit those other balls again. They’re train, they’re a training tool. All right. It’s like um, I always use the reference of a personal trainer. So a personal trainer has many tools in their toolkit, right? And just from dumbbells, you have all different weights of dumbbells, okay? You need all of them, okay, based upon that activity. In cardio tennis and our warm up and cooldown, there’s so many um activities that we do that require skill, okay, that actually require feel, touch, and spin. Okay. And a lot of our adult athletes um need a lot of work in that area. Yes. And it’s not, and it’s and I and I don’t mean that disrespectfully, okay. In fact, I kind of blame coaches on that because the coaches are not teaching them. Okay. So can you, and here’s here’s a here’s a challenge I will shout out to your listeners, okay? Um, go out with one of your friends and get into like the red court. You can you can go over the net from the service line, that’s fine. Okay, and see how many times you can rally a red ball over the net and keep it in the lines. All right. I mean, it sounds so simple, but unfortunately, many of our, and that’s what that’s with the red ball, and then work your, you know, work your way up. Can you hit 10 in a row? And if you can, if you can hit 10 in a row, that’s great, but ultimately I need you to hit 100 in a row.unknown 5:54

Okay.Erin 5:54

I have terrible volleys. Which ball should be practical?Michele 5:57

I’m so glad we’re talking about this.Erin 5:59

So bad my volleys are, and I blame my coach way back when, when I started at 40.Michele 6:04

And you can blame me too, because I’m a coach and I, you know, I’ll take all these. Okay.

Fixing Volleys With Orange And Triples

Erin 6:09

Um Carolyn knows what coach I’m gonna blame.Michele 6:11

Yeah.Erin 6:12

So don’t worry, he’s not a listener.Michele 6:13

I would say, I would say, um, Erin, um, you know, again, you are a very typical female recreational tennis player. Okay, and I mean that in a great way. Oh no.Erin 6:25

Yep.Michele 6:26

And most gals, unfortunately, are afraid to be at the net. Yeah, because somehow, at some point, this hard yellow ball came at them or they got hit or whatnot. All right. So um definitely one should be starting their volley journey with with an orange ball minimally. Okay. Um, I will, I will, when I when I train, when I’m doing coach education, I will always state to a group, you know, what is what is one of the toughest skills in tennis? Well, reflex volleying. Okay. One of the toughest skills to do in tennis. And using a yellow ball is gonna make that a hundred times harder. So can you reflex volley with a partner with an orange or a green ball? Like, can you literally keep it in play and be cooperative? So those are the signs of skill, actual, actual lack or lack of skill. And it is humbling, okay? Like I do want to say, like, you’re gonna be uncomfortable. It’s going to be humbling, okay? But that’s okay. We need to be uncomfortable, we need to be a little humble because we need to know where we where we need to get to, right? Um, and so yeah, so it it it will show that will show reflex volley is gonna show up the weaknesses um pretty quickly. But I think that any recreational player can quickly improve their volley skills if they practice with orange and green, and more importantly, if they play triples. Okay, because triples forces you to be at the net. And what I always coach the athletes on in triples is I want them to be aggressive and go for everything. Because if they miss, they have two people to back them up, right? Because they’re afraid. I mean, I watch it all that time. I watch, and it’s men and women, okay? They’re at the net and they just want the balls literally like right there, and they let it go by them.Erin 8:37

Well, the other thing you can’t do in triples that you can do in doubles, because I find myself doing it all the time, and then I’m like, I need a magnet that keeps me at the net. Okay. But in triples, you can’t do what I do in doubles, which is like, I’ll be up there for a little bit, and then I’m like, I find myself on backtracking. Fading back. Fading back, yeah. And in triples, you have two people, you’re not gonna have three people on the baseline because then you’re gonna be out of room. Right. So it does force you to stay at the net. Exactly. But yeah, I’m gonna switch to that that ball and start over my volley journey.Michele 9:06

For our listeners, uh, you know, again, ask your coaches to, if you’re having a clinic or something, to play 10 minutes of triples in that clinic with the with the orange ball. And um, and or go out and practice with your one of your teammates or one of your besties. Um, my favorite ball is the green ball. I mean, I hit the green, I try, I train green ball all the time, and I’m I’m high skill and I’m high fitness. Okay. And it’s also easier on your body. So if you have wrist issues, elbow issues, shoulder issues, many, many reasons that that could all be happening, but I’m telling you, the yellow ball is not helping it. Okay, think about how hard and fast that ball is coming at you and the amount of absorption absorption of force that those body parts and joints are taking because of the yellow ball.Erin 10:01

Yeah. Who knew we’d get on such a kick about tennis balls? I love it. I do too. This is so exciting. A whole nother episode.Michele 10:10

Exactly. I’m I’m I’m I’m so when I was, you know, thinking about our time together, I really wanted to cover this topic, and I think you’ve covered it just fabulously. So thank you.Erin 10:19

Very well. Yes, thank you.

Green Ball Training And Closing

Carolyn 10:21

Thanks again to Michele for coming on the podcast. We have one more episode where she discusses her experience being part of the Gigi Fernandez camp at Indian Wells. Also, we’ve included links in our show notes to learn more about National Hit to Be Fit weekend. Thanks so much for listening and hope to see you on the court soon.

The post Ep. 319: Why Red, Orange, And Green Balls Help Rec Players appeared first on Second Serve Tennis Podcast.

She was inducted into Methodist University Athletics Hall of Fame, the Fayetteville, NC Sports Club Hall of Fame, named PTR Pro of year for NC, and received the USTA NC Lifetime Achievement award. 

Tennis is booming and needs more coaches! If you would like to learn to coach you can contact Francie at Barragan@sta.usta.com. 

Here’s a complete transcript of our conversation with Francie:

Carolyn 0:05

Hi, this is Carolyn and I’m here with Erin, and this is part two of our conversation with Francie Barragan. Francie played college tennis for NC State. She was the head coach at Methodist University and also was the director of tennis at the McGregor Downs Country Club in Kerry, North Carolina. She is currently the USTA Southern Manager of Coach Development and Training and the Tennis Service Representative for North Carolina. If you want to learn some tactics for playing against players that hit with less pace, please check out part one. But here is part two.Erin 0:34

Okay, so the opposite of that question is what are some tac tactics for playing against higher level players? Sometimes I feel like I’m just out of my league, you know? Like, you know, sometimes I’m like, I’m I’m outskilled, I’m outplayed, I’m they’ve just have more more experience than me. So maybe give some ideas about playing higher-rated players.Francie 0:53

Good question. So of course, in any match, whether it’s the same skill level, lower rated, higher rated, we want to start out using our strengths. Uh seeing if we can just win with our strengths. And ideally, we would be able to win every match with our strengths, but that doesn’t always happen. So if it’s a higher-rated player and they’re just out rallying you that day, you know you’re not gonna be able to beat them just with with your game plan. Um, I’m gonna flip that question and get the two of you thinking what if you have ever lost to someone that maybe is a lower-rated player, what did they do to you? Consistency.Carolyn 1:28

Consistency. Yes, they are consistent. They just got it back.Erin 1:32

Yeah, every ball back. Yeah, that’s actually true.Francie 1:36

That is true. So one of two things, either that, where you take them out of their rhythm, and maybe you throw in, I know we said we like to hit the ball hard, but maybe we throw in a couple lobs over the net player’s head, maybe it’s slice, whatever we can do so that they’re not in the rhythm that they like. And if that’s not working, then another option is if we are that aggressive-minded player that likes to hit it hard, rather than trying to overpower them and hitting 10 straight, powerful forehands, maybe we hit one or two powerful forehands and we get into the net, and then we force them to come up with the goods. The pressure’s on them to hit the winner, to hit the law, but you know, whatever it might be. Um, but suddenly if they know they can outrally you, they’re gonna be very comfortable just staying back there and and doing that rally.Erin 2:18

I played a woman this week. Carolyn, you’ve played her the way she had like an amazing slice hard at my feet return. And so we were losing a lot of points. That’s why we lost the first. In the second, I finally figured out if I gave her kind of like a much like lobbier serve, and I hate to say that because you know I can hit a hard serve, but when I just kind of like got it in the box and with a lot more spin on it, not like I don’t have a kick serve, so let’s we won’t call it that, but I’ll call it a lobby serve. I know what I know what a kick serve is, I don’t have it, but I do have like a you know, I can kind of lob it in there. Or it would still come back with slice, but it would come back high into my strike zone. And I was like, And of course we lost the second five, seven, but I’m like, if we had figured that out in the first, that might have made all the difference in the world. But it was like we were just trying to throw the kitchen sink at them, like everything was working for them, nothing was kind of working for us, so you know, um, but that was one of the tactics that I used. I’m like, I okay, I have to change my serve because her return was just killing it every time and getting points off that.Francie 3:18

So that’s smart.Erin 3:19

And from what I asked, you could put it all together earlier.Francie 3:22

Exactly. Well, what I asked you earlier, if you’d ever lost to a lower-rated player, it sounded like they did that exact same thing. Take the pace off, consistency, probably gave you an off-pace serve out of your strike zone. Um, so really when you’re playing against that better player, you know, take yourself back to what makes you uncomfortable when you’re playing against players that you should beat.Erin 3:41

Yeah. I remember I I won a I will never forget the singles match. There was a a lot of factors. The woman had her child out there. He was do you remember this story, Carolyn? He was um heckling me.Carolyn 3:53

Yes, I do remember the story, yes.Erin 3:55

But I but I won, and it was a super frustrating match, not just because her child was heckling me. The whole night was just frustrating. But I literally remember I will never forget that match because I won in match tie break against her the very last serve. I literally, and this is not a a knock against any two five because there’s a lot of two fives that have good serves, but I as a three-five or four-row at the time, I two five served her the softest serve I could do, but still get in the box, and she slammed it into the net. And I was like, yes, winner.Francie 4:26

I actually had a college teammate at NC State that did that some. And you know, and when she won the point, she’d get excited and pump her fist, and that made the opponents even more upset. I mean, they wanted to throw their racket because here they are playing in the ACC, and this uh my teammate was just throwing in a lobster. Yeah, yeah.Carolyn 4:43

Well, they say winning ugly.Francie 4:45

It works, you know, that drove them crazy.Carolyn 4:50

Okay, and I I know you said you you get this question a lot too, and it’s when I play a lower-rated player, our opponents never hit the ball to me. What do I do in this case? And I have a story after you tell the answer to this.Francie 5:02

Well, I know everybody usually it crosses their mind to say, well, you go stand in the alley or maybe even sit on the bench and I’ll take over. But um, but that’s not what we want to do. We’re here to make some friends. So um, really, if they’re not hitting the ball to you, let’s take it at a few different angles. If you’re the player at the net and your partner’s at the baseline, I I think uh Carolyn said you were a basketball player growing up. I like to relate it to basketball. In basketball, you have assists. Uh, and I like to think of it as I’m trying to assist my partner. I might not get to hit the ball, but I’m gonna try to help her win that point. And by doing that, I’m I’m faking, I’m poaching, I’m closing into the net. I am just moving all the time. So my opponents have no clue where I’m gonna be. And ultimately, if they’re trying to play keep away from me, if they don’t know where I’m gonna be, that adds some stress to their life and some uncertainty. So I might not always poach and get the ball, but as long as I’m moving, then they know they have to go for a little more and I’m getting that assist. Um, if I’m the baseliner and my partner’s at the net, the temptation for the lower-rated player is to start scooting back a little bit. There’s a fast-paced ball coming out back off the net. When actually in actuality, that makes it easier for them to dip it at your feet and a harder volley for you. And if you’re the lower-rated player, the last thing you want to do is have to hit a harder volley against a better player. So I’ll try to get my partner to scoot in a little tighter on the net, uh, as long as I’m ready to run down the lobs potentially. And then they get the easier volley. You know, most people don’t want to hit it to a net player if you know the net player is going to get a high volley. So if my partner scoots in, they’re getting the high volley. Suddenly, you know, no one wants to give someone a high volley. So I start getting a few more ground strokes until they start lobbing over my partner. Then then we have to figure that out. Um that way reset and new time. But at least it works for a little while. Yeah. And then one other solution a lot of teams have is well, let’s go both back, which sometimes we need to do if they’re lobbying. But then that makes it easier for them to keep away from the better player. So what I’m doing in that scenario is I’m gonna tell my partner, okay, you know, if you’re getting every ground stroke, let’s look to step into it and get into the net. Um, and we’ll move forward either together or maybe I once again I’m just looking for opportunities to put my partner up there in that winning position where they can build their confidence and get some of those easier volleys, and I’ll I’ll take care of everything that might go over her head or or you know, to the baseline where I can keep us in the point. But I see a lot of uh teams, let’s just stay back and and you know, really if you can get your partner up there closer to the net to hit some winners, that’s gonna build their confidence and then that can turn the momentum of the match.Carolyn 7:33

That’s great advice. So I was at the 6-5 state tournament and I was the lower-rated player. So I was a 3-0, and we lost a match, and it was an important match. And afterwards, the 3-5 told me like five times. They just she just didn’t know what to do because all they did was hit the ball to me. They weren’t hitting it to her, they were only hitting it to me. And so I wish, you know, I wish during the match we could have figured some of that out. Because at the end, for her to say that, I’m like, okay, I get it. I was the worst one on the floor. And I’m the reason we’ve lost. That’s how I translated it as well.Francie 8:08

Well, yeah, and and we all know, but because we’ve all been in that situation where you’re the one getting picked on, you know you’re getting picked on. Um, so if your partner can say, hey, you know, close in, take some risks, I gotcha. You know, if they hit it over your head, um, then then yes, you’re you’re putting yourself in an easier position to win the point. And if your partner can help you out by moving a little bit, then that takes some pressure off too. Yeah. If she would approach a little bit, maybe she would. Yeah, there you go.Carolyn 8:33

I’m excited. She she was right. I was I was the worst one on the court.Erin 8:37

So I actually had a funny story. I played, I think it was seven, five years ago, and I was playing with a woman who I was three, five, she was a four-o, but she was getting ready to get bumped to four five. I mean, she was well above everybody on the court. She was well above our skill level, right? And she did the, and I’m sure Francie, you’ve probably heard this from other players. She goes, she gets frustrated, she hits the ball out, you know, somebody gave her no pace or whatever it was, right? And she looks at me and sighs and says, I just cannot play at this level. And I looked at her and I said, I am your handicap. You have to play at this level because I am not this good to be on this court. Like I was a, I might have even been a 3-0 playing as a three-five. And she was like, we might have been a on a 7-5 court, but I may not have even been a three-five. I might have been playing up. And I literally said, You better stick in this because you gotta, you’re the higher ranked player. Like, it’s up to you. There, there, you know, I’m not there’s not a lot I can do here, but I just remember like exactly what court I was on, what club I was at, and telling her straight up, get get your act together because you’re gonna be the reason why we win or lose. You know, you gotta make it happen. So and then she quit tennis after that. She got bumped to four or five. Well, she didn’t have anyone to play with, so she literally did quit right after that. Not after that match, but after that season.Francie 9:56

Okay.Erin 9:57

I know. Now she would have plenty. This was years ago, but now we have tons of four fives in our area. So she could have she would have stuck with it. But I just remember kind of not yelling at her, but basically telling her, giving her a pep talk that she better get it together.

Francie 10:11

Yeah, that’s probably an example, is what you don’t want your better player to do. It is a better player, their job is to build the confidence of their partner. Help them out. Exactly. So, Francie, what is the best advice you’ve ever received? Um, well, I’d say uh I have to give my parents credit, uh, although when I was a teenager, I might have rolled my eyes a few times with their advice. But um they would whether I’d get nervous for a big junior uh match or you know, maybe I faced a cheater and I was just frustrated at the end of the match that I’d gotten them some bad line calls. They always would tell me, you know, when you get to be our age, meaning adult uh age, uh I wouldn’t remember the necessarily the results or the scores, but I’d remember the friends I’d made and uh the experiences that I’d had with those friends. Um so they were always able to keep it in perspective. And I feel like now those uh commercials where you’re becoming your parents. So when I’m coaching and I hear people complaining about their captains, she put me with the worst player on the team for three straight matches. I just want to give my parents advice. Like it’s gonna be okay, just be a good friend. And um, you know, that’s what you’re gonna remember 10 years down the line. So, yep, I pretty much become my parents now. Yep. What happens?Carolyn 11:24

That’s really good advice though.Erin 11:26

So, since you’ve played for so long, you must have a crazy story. So, what’s the craziest thing that’s ever happened to you on a tennis court?Francie 11:34

I have been playing for a long time and I have a lot of crazy stories. I heard Claire Bartlett’s um interview with y’all, and I’ve had something similar where opponents flip the score. Um, so I don’t want to copy hers, but uh when I was in the girls’ 12s and I was in a hot summer match battling it out, uh, and when I say battling, I mean probably hitting a million lobs because it was the 12s. Yes. And uh I had asked my parents, you know, can I have Gatorade in my water bottle that day? Because it was so hot. So I they gave me a mixture of water and Gatorade. And we finally got to a changeover. I was so excited to chug my Gatorade and I go to chug it. And I took that first sip and I knew something was wrong. And um I had forgotten to to close the lid on my water bottle. And sure enough, in the summer, there were yellow jackets everywhere, and they had gotten in the water bottle, the water jug. And when I took that jug, yellow jackets, uh, it was a stew of Gatorade and yellow jackets. They fought all the way down, and one stung me and set my throat and stuff. So that was the craziest story, and lots of Benadryl and um ipoprofen solved it uh, you know, with some doctors. But uh yeah, I guess the moral of the story is always close your water your water, especially if you have sports drinks.Erin 12:47

Could you finish your math?Francie 12:48

No, you had to retire it. I had to retire, but I did get the sportsmanship award from that tournament.Carolyn 12:54

Wait, so you chugged it and the yellow jacket came down your throat?Francie 12:59

Yeah, so they had all flown into my little water jug, uh, you know, because I left the cap open and I didn’t look before drinking. And yeah, I took one big swallow of yellow jackets.Erin 13:11

That is crazy. That is definitely one we have never heard.Francie 13:14

All right.Erin 13:14

You get an award for that, Francie.Francie 13:16

Yeah, because I know you’ve interviewed hundreds of guests, so I’m excited about that.Carolyn 13:21

Um, Francie, can you also tell us your most memorable moment on the court?Francie 13:25

I’ve had a lot of those too, and you know, they all center around team competition, whether it’s college tennis, league tennis, um, there’s just nothing better than playing as a part of a team through tennis. And uh, but I I’ve been a coach and those are probably my best memories. I’d say one of them um that maybe your listeners can benefit from when I was coaching at Methodist University. We were on our spring break trip. We were playing a team from Pennsylvania that on paper was a lot better than us. We should not have been competitive that day. But my players um came to play, you know, they strung together some wins, and before we knew it, it was all coming down to one singles match. Um actually, it was, I believe, number four singles, and it was our senior. She never lost. She was one of those players that took the pace off the ball and ran down everything and just never missed, never lost. She was awesome. Unfortunately, it wasn’t awesome that day. She was she lost first set, she was down um 5’2, and I went out there to talk to her. She was just bawling. She was so upset because she was gonna let her team down. And you know, she was the upperclassman, she wanted nothing more to pull off that upset for the team. And that girl was good. I didn’t know what to tell her as the coach. So all I tried to do was just try to get her to stop crying. Um, I’d read some sports psychology books, and I said, you know, I’ve read that when you smile, it’s nearly impossible to be nervous, sad, mad. Um, it releases uh some chemicals into your bloodstream that suddenly, you know, just makes you happy. So let’s try it. So I made her smile at me for 15 seconds, that changeover, and she wanted to kill me, but it made her have permagrin. And she did it. And I said, Okay, now you’re gonna go out and play. And after every point, you have to look at me and smile. She rolled her eyes again and she went out there. She won the first point. She looks at me with the most fake grin anyone’s ever seen, but she did it. She did it. And then she wins the next point. And you know, she continues to give me the fake smile. She strings together that game, and suddenly her smile got a little more genuine, and her opponent got crazy. She was like, I’m getting ready to close out this match and win it. And for some reason, you know, this girl’s just laughing and smiling. What’s going on? And before we knew it, my pri my player had gotten to 5-0 in the second set. By this point, she really was. She was smiling during the points, after the points, before the points. And uh, she came back and she won that set 7-5. And then the third set, I don’t even know if she lost the game. Um, she just put it on cruise control, and it was really just about you know, releasing that kind of stress and that negative energy through through smiling. And um, and suddenly she got in a groove. She she got in a zone. That’s a great thing. Yeah. So her teammates all ran out and pretty much tackled her on the court. And it was one of the biggest wins at that time for our program um in history. So it was awesome. And uh, I’d like to say it was my coaching advice, but like I said, I was pretty much trying to get her to stop crying and she did the rest.Erin 16:06

Yeah, but most people would, you know, give advice about like do this with your forehand or try a drop shot or you know, like tactical, but you just did the emotional part, which that is credit to you. That’s awesome.Francie 16:17

So now when I coach uh adult players and they’re heading the states and I know they’re gonna be nervous, I I do the same thing, even though I’m not out there on their court. I tell them they have to look at their partner and smile in between every point. And it calms them down and hopefully provides a little more fun of an experience for them too.Carolyn 16:32

I’m gonna start doing that. I don’t do that. I’m gonna start smiling out there.Francie 16:36

There you go. If nothing else, your opponents will wonder what’s going on after you lost a point in your smile.Erin 16:42

I know. I want to see the big fake smile. That that would make me laugh every last we did that. Like when you when I know you’re just faking it, that would make me start laughing.Francie 16:51

For sure. For sure. Definitely. I’m gonna see that too. Anything else, Francie? Well, yeah, I’d say in my current position, um, as your listeners probably know, tennis has been booming since COVID, and we need more coaches. Uh and so for league players out there that often think, oh, I see my pro, I could never coach tennis. If you know more than someone that’s never picked up a racket, then you can be a coach because you have something to offer them. And whether it’s coaching kids, coaching adults, any age group, any skill level, we have wheelchair tennis, abilities tennis. We have so many different opportunities to make an impact, either as a volunteer or to make some extra money on the side. I encourage all your listeners, if you’re passionate about tennis, to contact your USTA district or tennis center representative, and they can help you get started. We do a lot of free trainings and low-cost trainings, but would love to have more people just using their passion to grow the game of tennis and introducing the sport so they can have the experiences that y’all have had.Carolyn 17:45

We really appreciate Francie coming on the podcast. Please check out our website, which is secondservepodcast.com. Thanks so much for listening and hope to see you on the court soon.

The post Ep. 318: Beat Better Players appeared first on Second Serve Tennis Podcast.

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

Francie played college tennis for NC State and was the Assistant Coach for NC State after graduating. She was the Head Coach at Methodist University, the Director of Professional Tennis Management at Methodist University, the Director of Tennis at MacGregor Downs Country Club, and is a PTR & USPTA certified pro. She is currently the USTA Southern Manager of Coach Development and Training and the Tennis Service Representative for North Carolina.

She was inducted into Methodist University Athletics Hall of Fame, the Fayetteville, NC Sports Club Hall of Fame, named PTR Pro of year for NC, and received the USTA NC Lifetime Achievement award.

Tennis is booming and needs more coaches! If you would like to learn to coach you can contact Francie at Barragan@sta.usta.com.

Here’s a complete transcript of our conversation with Francie:

Carolyn 0:03

Hi, this is Carolyn, and I’m here with Erin, and we are really excited to have Francie Barragan here with us. Francie played college tennis for NC State and was the assistant coach for NC State after graduating. She’s the head coach at Methodist University and the Director of Professional Tennis Management at Methodist University, and also was the director of tennis at the McGregor Downs Country Club in Cary, North Carolina. She was inducted into the Methodist University Athletics Hall of Fame, the Fable North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame, and named the PTR Pro of the Year. And she also received the USTA North Carolina Lifetime Achievement Award. She is currently the USTA Southern Manager of Coach Development and Training and the Tennis Service Representative for North Carolina. So, Erin, unlike us, she is definitely an expert.Erin 0:48

I read that bio when she sent it, but hearing it is even more impressive, Francie. So thanks for being with us. Thank you. Really, it just means I’m old. I’ve done a lot of different things. Uh somehow uh you look much younger than I do, though. So I doubt it. It just means you’ve been playing tennis a very long time and didn’t start as an adult, like Carolyn and I.Carolyn 1:08

True. Yes. We’ve been playing for a while.Erin 1:10

Yeah.Carolyn 1:10

Since Francie has dealt with a lot of adult recreational players, she has received a number of questions about playing combo or about playing people at different levels. So, Erin, can you start us off with the first question?Erin 1:23

Yeah. We wanted to talk about what we call the combo season in uh in our southern section. We do have players that listen from all over the country, but we know that a lot of players listen from the nine southern states that we’re in. And so can you kind of explain? I know when I first started in tennis and I heard about our ranking system, and someone said I’m a two-five or I’m a three-five or I’m a five-off or whatever, I was like, I have no idea what that meant until I went through the self, what’s it called? Self uh self-rating. Self-rating. Thank you. I was like, not self-ranking, the self-rating process. And then I was like, oh, okay, I’m a two-five based on this criteria. But then when it came to combo season that same year, because I started in the summer, in our area, we do combo season in the fall. And so when people were like, oh, I’m playing on a five-five team or six-five team, I’m like, oh my gosh, they’re really, really good. They’re playing like pro tennis. And then I realized, and I want you to explain, it’s actually the combination of the two players’ rankings on the court. Correct? So kind of explain the levels.Francie 2:25

So combo doubles in the southern section does allow you to play with people that you wouldn’t see throughout the year in your other leagues. So a three-five has some options. They can play six, five doubles, uh, which is playing with the three-os, seven, five doubles, playing with the four-os. And uh, you know, one of the things we hear about leagues is oh, I play against the same players all the time. Combo doubles gives you a great opportunity to see some new faces and some new partners as well.Erin 2:50

Yeah, that’s great. So I actually play so Carol and I are both four-os, so I play seven, five, and eight, five. But tell us um what it’s like. Like I know you coach a lot, so give us what you’re hearing from players and what their experiences are playing as a combo and the levels that they are and what they like to play. Because I know we’ve talked about playing against lower level, higher level players.Francie 3:10

So explain that. Whether you’re in the southern section or outside of our section, uh, you know, I think there’s uh tremendous benefits in playing with different skill levels. Uh what I’ve seen in my personal experience in putting together league teams and encouraging people to play on leagues is that everybody wants to play up. We all want to play with that better player. You know, we’re just hoping that better player invites us to the courts that day to hit with them. But when I start asking players to maybe play with lower level players, then I kind of get that, well, I’ve got a doctor’s appointment, or I, you know, I’m busy, I don’t know, I can’t make it that day, whatever.Erin 3:45

Everyone’s excuses. Every Tuesday in the fall, I’m booked.Francie 3:49

Every single one. Yes. But there’s benefits to playing with players that are both stronger than you and weaker than you. And one of the best stories I’ve heard recently, a gentleman named Matt Knode, who used to be the coach at Baylor University, he said even at that level, you know, his players would complain when they went to the practice court and they were playing with a player that might be lower in the lineup than them. And he finally told the guys one day, you know, Djokovic, Alcaraz, and Federer, those guys, how often do they get to practice with someone that’s better than them? Or even play a match against someone that’s better than them? Um really for some of those guys, never. Um yet are they getting worse? You know, because that’s one of the points that players will make. Oh, I get worse when I play with uh lower-level players. Djokovic isn’t getting worse last time I checked. Um so I thought that was one thing I’d never thought about is uh if the higher level players can do that benefit to put themselves in a situation to learn from every experience, whether it’s a better player or maybe not as good of a player, then certainly we can at the recreational level as well. Yeah.Erin 4:54

I feel like it it’s paying it forward too. I I was, you know, I mean, I started as a very beginner, never touched a racket, and I got invited onto a team. And then when combo season hit, actually at the time, there’s also a 5-0 combo in our area, which is basically just continuing your spring season with another two five. But man, did we win a lot at 5-0 and 5-5? You know. But I also felt like I was asked to play on a little bit higher level teams than my skill set. And so when I got to that higher level, I paid it forward and I was willing to play on those six, five, five, five, and six, five teams because I feel like, you know, other people brought me along. I felt like I should put, you know, kind of pay that back.Francie 5:34

I agree. It is giving up giving it back. It also is um meeting new friends. So one thing as a teaching pro that maybe will will save your listeners some money is uh when I teach every clinic, every private lesson, I started out and I asked the players, uh, what do you want to work on today? And uh half the time I just get a blank stare. They just look at me like, you’re the pro, figure it out. But uh the other half of the time, they usually have something in mind. And I’d say when they have something in mind, probably 80% of the time it is something similar to I played against a lobber the other day, and I know I’m a better player than them, but they gave me no pace, or maybe they hit a slice with no pace. And you know, I’m the 3-5 and they’re a 3-0, but they just drove me crazy because they didn’t give me anything to work with. And before I knew it, I’d lost the match. And how do I beat those players that aren’t giving me the pace I like and I’m not able to get in a rhythm? And I know I’m a stronger player, but uh I don’t know how to win those matches. And so they come to the pros, they want lessons on it. Well, really, that’s good. You know, uh the pros can give you a lot of good advice, but you can sign up for combo doubles and play against those lower-rated players. You can ask the players at your club that might be a lower-rated player that you know hit a lot of lobs. They might hit a lot of off-pace slices and angles, and they want to play with you. If you’re a stronger player, so go up to them, ask to practice with them, ask to play with them, they’ll make their day, and uh you can learn how to how to beat those players. Yeah. And so when it comes time for league season, you’re ready, you know the strategies that work for you and your game to beat those lobbers or those players that might not give you the pace. And I think that’s a lot something that our players often don’t think about is uh, you know, taking the initiative to invite those lower-rated players to play with them and how honored they’ll be, but how you can tremendously benefit from it.Erin 7:20

I just learned that just now on this pod. I was today years old when I learned that because we always think, like you said, we go to a pro and ask, how do we do that? How do we hit against someone with less pace? But you never I have not thought about, and I’ve practiced with a lot of players that are ranked lower than me, but I haven’t thought about going out and and literally like making an invite, a formal invite to practice with them for me to practice against that kind of pace and for them to practice against mine, which is real that’s really good advice. Thank you.Carolyn 7:49

Yeah, yeah. And I always liked playing down because I know I played five, five, six, five, seven, five, and eight, five. I’m hopefully not gonna be the worst one on the court. So it always gives me a little bit of like, okay, today I’m, you know, I can try different things.Francie 8:03

Yeah. I agree. That’s why it’s beneficial to play both up and down and at your skill level. All three are important, and and really taking that approach of practicing at all different levels is gonna help you in the long run tremendously.Carolyn 8:16

Yeah. Do you have any strategies when we’re playing people with less pace?Francie 8:19

It’s not easy, is it? No.Erin 8:22

First of all, I only hit hard and harder, Francie. I don’t I I know you I know you haven’t seen me play, but that’s my game, right, Carolyn? Yes, yes. Hard and harder.

Francie 8:31

There’s nothing wrong with that, but it takes a lot of effort to generate your own pace. It’s easier to use others’ pace. Uh and uh yes, it takes a lot of effort, it takes a lot of footwork. You have to make sure you’re balanced, you’re using your legs, you’re using your core to generate that pace. Have to add the spin too, um, because the spin will give you that consistency. But I think the toughest thing when you’re playing with someone that doesn’t give you the pace you like is uh gives you more time to think. And uh as we all know as tennis players, sometimes it’s not great when we’re thinking out there. Um and so when someone hits the ball hard, we don’t have to think. We’re just using their pace against them. But suddenly, when we’re given all that time, the key is to come up with your plan before the point starts and to stick with that plan because you’re gonna be tempted to change, you know, oh, I know that I planned on taking this ball out of the air, but this would be a great opportunity to hit the perfect drop shot when actually you’re five feet behind the baseline and it’s not the perfect opportunity. But your mind will play tricks with you if you have too much time on the tennis court. So, most importantly, if you take anything from this, is if you’re playing against a maybe a lower-rated player that doesn’t give you the pace you’re used to, is come up with that plan in advance and stick to it and try not to make those last minute changes of your mind because that’s when the errors happen.Erin 9:45

Yeah.Francie 9:45

If they’re a lobber, you know, the worst thing we can do is just try to blast the first ball for a winner, especially if you’re 10 feet behind the baseline. You know, we want to. I mean, we see that sitter coming and we want to just blast it. Um, but uh that’s probably not the best way to set up the point. Uh so what we’re gonna do is uh we’re we’re going to first of all use our strength. So uh, you know, if it is, Erin, I think you you said oops. So that means you like to hit the ball hard. I did.Erin 10:12

I said not directly defensively.Francie 10:15

If you if you like to hit it hard, you know, use your strengths, like I said earlier, um, but go for a bigger margin for error. Uh maybe you aim for the single sideline because you do have to set up your point. Once you you’ve worked that point, you’ve got your opponent in a defensive position, then look, then move forward and and hopefully put yourself in that winning position at the net. But if they’re really lobbing and and you can’t attack, they’re pushing you way behind the baseline. The best strategy is to hit a few high deep balls back. It might be heavy top spin balls, it might just be a true lob, push them back as well. Once you push them back, you’ve got the open court to potentially hit angles, maybe even drop shots. You have time to take balls out of the air. But this is important. If you’re gonna hit lobs and take balls out of the air, you’ve got to communicate to your partner in advance and tell them when we get in this lobbying rally, I need you to anticipate that a lob’s coming back and cover, cover your side. So when you’re looking to take that ball out of the air, you would uh basically form a wall on the service line with your partner. You uh have to cover the lob. And then if that still isn’t working, you can potentially draw them into the net. If they’re one of those baseliners that never misses and just isn’t giving you the pace, then then maybe off the return serve, we use like an angle slice or just a um a shorter ball to pull them in. And then you can hit the ball hard. You have a target, you can drive it up the middle, you can do whatever you need to do uh to win the point once they’re up there. Those are just a few ideas.Erin 11:38

I’m going back to so many matches that I lost, wishing that I had thought about these tactics. Yes, right, Carolyn? Yes. I’m literally like, I’m thinking of players that that play this way, and I’m like, oh yeah, I th I thought I was gonna win that because she had no pace and I can hit hard and or whatever, you know. But yeah, I wish I had had these tactics before.Carolyn 11:58

Yeah, exactly. Or they lob constantly, and then I go, okay, I know I should take it out of the air. Yes. But then I’m not very good at taking it out of the air.Francie 12:07

Yeah, well, that’s a hard shot. Like I said, the first key is that your partner’s covering their side, or else we’re gonna get burned every time. The other thing is if you’re taking out of the air, if you’ve hit a lob and come in, they’re back at the fence. So we don’t have to be good. We don’t have to blast that ball because they’re right back there. So, really, actually, sometimes that moderately paced volley, uh, sometimes even a shank, a miss hit works better than a powerful shot because they’re back at the fence already. Um, so it doesn’t have to be as good as we think in our minds that we have to have to make it. And then one more tactic uh we talked about potentially having to hit some lobs back before we get the ball we want. I’ve found that if I lob over their net player’s head, you know, no one likes running for that ball. And then uh their net player is gonna be just getting bored, switching and switching and never getting to hit the shot either. So that can frustrate them. And if you can frustrate a lobber, then you deserve to win. I mean, then that matches yours if you have frustrated the lobber.Erin 13:05

Carolyn, I have a friend that she loves to get into a lob rally. She just will do it all day. Where I’m I’m not that player, but I remember playing with her one time and she was hitting. And you know, you can kind of almost talk to your partner when that’s happening because you’re waiting for a lob to come back, you’re hitting another lob, you’re waiting. And we had this conversation, and she literally looked at me and she said, I can do this all day. I have three daughters. She said, I have the most amount of patience of anyone I know. So every time I get in that, I think of that, I think it’s so funny.Carolyn 13:36

Thanks very much to Francie for coming on the podcast. We have one more episode with Francie where she’ll discuss some tactics for playing against higher-level players. What to do if your opponents are only hitting it to the lower rated player and the craziest situation that ever happened to her on the court and it involves yellow jackets. We hope you check out our website, which is secondservodcast.com. Thanks so much for listening and hope to see you on the court soon.

The post Ep. 317: Advice for Combo or Playing Across Levels appeared first on Second Serve Tennis Podcast.

For more information on all things Cardio Tennis and National Hit to be Fit Weekend visit: http://Linktr.ee/cardiotennis

Register to host a Hit to be Fit event at: www.cardiotennisinstructor.com 

Here are links to our past episodes with Michele:

Ep. 144: Cardio Tennis – the Right Way to Play Triples

Ep. 145: Cardio Tennis Can Make You The Biggest Loser Too!

Here’s a complete transcript of our conversation with Michele Krause:

Carolyn 0:07

Hi, this is Carolyn and I’m here with Erin and we are excited to have Michele Krause back on the podcast. We had her, what was it, Erin? 2022. I think it was 2022 to discuss cardio tennis. So we are thrilled to have you back on. Thanks for coming back on, Michelle. So so excited to be back with you gals and to discuss our topic for today. Yeah. Yeah. Can you tell us a little bit about the topic, which is National Hit to Be Fit Weekend? I would love to.

Red Ball Triples And Inclusivity

Michele 0:36

So National Hit to Be Fit weekend is May 15th through the 17th. Now, this will be the third year that we’re doing National Hit to Be Fit. It is in conjunction with National Tennis Month. So I’m not sure if everybody knows that National Tennis Month exists, but it does, and it has existed for a very long time. And we’ve done a much better job, and I would say the last three to four years of embracing that and doing the things that we should be doing around that month. So Hit to Be Fit was a concept that I came up with because I love big events and I like lots of people and music and it should be a party on the court. So I’m like, let’s do uh let’s do National Hit to Be Fit Day. And in of course, my um thinking very big blonde brain. Uh it started as, okay, we’re gonna do this big event at Lake Nona at the US T national campus, you know, and we’re gonna have, you know, 20 courts of, you know, cardio tennis going on. And then I thought to myself, well, yeah, we can do that, but it should be bigger than that. Like ever like everybody in Florida should be doing that. Okay. And then I thought, no, everybody across the country should be doing that. And uh then I’m like, okay, we’re gonna have 300 locations across the country all doing the same thing on the same day. All right, so there was my vision. And we’ve had quite a bit of success um these last two years. And so the mission of National Hit to Be Fit Weekend is that one, we are celebrating tennis and all its health and wellness benefits. And we are also trying to unite the tennis industry on one day more or less. So the first two years it was Hit to Be Fit Day. And this year for our event, we looked usually at Lake Nona, we do it on a Saturday or a Sunday morning. And for this year, we felt we wanted to do it on a Friday night. So we will be under the lights. And because of that, um, knowing knowing our facilities across the country, not all of them would be able to do something on a Friday, Friday night on a big scale. So we made the decision that would be National Hit to Be Fit weekend as opposed to National Hit to Be Fit Day. Okay, so so a facility, you can be a country club, you can be a commercial facility, you could be a public park, you can be a CTA. You can schedule your event anytime Friday, Saturday, Sunday over that weekend. Love it. All right, I just talked a lot. Do you have any last thoughts on that?Carolyn 3:34

I I had the question. So, what are people doing during the okay? Yeah, so that’s great, Michelle. Hit to be fit. What does that mean?Erin 3:42

What does it mean? What does it mean? All right, so I heard uh Friday night party as well.Michele 3:47

Yeah, and we’re and we’re I’m gonna talk more about the Friday night party too, okay? So obviously I manage cardio tennis, and we know that cardio tennis is um a great way to get new tennis participants into our sport. Um, we also have adult red ball, okay, which is also one of the easiest entry points to get people into our sport. And so I’m about growing the game. Um, I am about all ability levels and fitness levels playing together and being inclusive. So the event itself is a little bit of adult red ball. And then our favorite game in the world, cardio tennis triples. Yes. Yeah. So Carol and I love triples, right? We do now. Yeah.Carolyn 4:36

Now that you now that you know the right way to play, right? Yeah, because I had played previously with a regular ball, and Michelle told us that was wrong. That’s wrong. Yeah. Because people were just getting nailed left and right. And then with the orange ball, it’s perfect.Michele 4:49

It’s perfect, yeah. So when you take the context of the red and the orange ball and um cardio tennis programming, again, we’re going to hit to be fit. And whether you’re a new player to the sport or you’re an experienced higher level athlete, everybody is gonna play with and against each other in this event format.Erin 5:14

So that is my favorite ball, is the red ball, actually. I love the red ball. But yeah, that ball, we actually, Carolyn and I last summer um did a triples event um together. It was so hot, but it was super fun. And there were all different levels, like you said. And I actually learned from you when we had you on in 2022, which will link your other old episodes back, you know, after um in our show notes, um, so people can go back and listen to that. But I think I learned then that you can mix all different levels. And we certainly had that in our event. And that’s what makes it fun, is it kind of doesn’t matter if you’re just beginning or you’re advanced, because that ball, I think you said it kind of levels the playing field for people. So I love that. Anyone like any of our listeners should be asking their friends to just come out, even if you usually get into tennis as an adult by having a friend just say, Come out and hit, just try it. We’ve had so many people that are now high-level tennis players start in their 40s and 50s just because their friend said, just come out and hit with me, just try it, give it a try. It’s fun, whatever. Um, and this is a perfect event for people to get started and ask their friends to come to an event like this because even if they don’t think they can hit a tennis ball, they’ll be able to. And it sounds like it’s gonna be a party.

How To Run The Party Format

Michele 6:26

So yeah, a party. Again, it’s it’s a it’s a red and orange ball event. Uh, music should be blaring. You want big numbers, okay? So if you if one is hosting this event, you really want to do this on a minimum of three courts with a minimum of 18 athletes. Okay, when you get down to two courts, it’s just not the same vibe, the same energy. Um, you can’t do the rotations as well. We have marketing collateral pieces for our facilities to use, sizzle video flyers, social media graphics to promote their event. We even have a short online course that’s everything’s free for the organizers to watch the the online so they learn how to actually run the vet the event. We don’t we don’t want people making up something. Okay, like we’re pretty, this is like this is this is what hit to be fit is. And it it is this because it is proven and we know it works, and you don’t need a coach for every court. There’s there is zero ball feeding in this event. Not one ball is fed. It is all partner interaction, and or in triples, the athlete is putting the ball into play. Okay, so you don’t need a lot of staff. You want to have great, you know, nightclub music going on. You could do fun things like if you want to do shirts for your participants, we’ll give you our hit to be fit logo. You can add food and beverage to it, etc. So, and you want to run the event um in the 90 to 20, excuse me, 90 minutes to two hours. Okay, it should not be more than two hours. 90 minutes is actually the perfect amount. Our Lake Nona event, we’re we’re pretty fancy with this one. So we have an amazing audio company and they set up an incredible sound system throughout the 20 courts. Okay, so the music is just incredible. And then we have a partner called Fit Radio. They are the leader in the group fitness music space from a uh in an app standpoint. And last year they create they curated two unique mixes for our event. So anybody that’s doing this event across the country will also have access to that music. Okay, so not only are we doing the same general activity, but hopefully we’re all listening to that party uh techno nightclub music. At Lake Nona, the Lake Nona Mascot Rally will be making an appearance. Um, there is a mascot. And then there will also be the debut of the new campus cocktail. Okay, which I have to keep under wraps because it’s still secret. Oh, it’s a secret.Carolyn 9:26

It’s a secret cocktail.Erin 9:27

I love that we have signature cocktails for all the events now.

How To Host And Register

Michele 9:31

It’s very signature cocktail. Yes. So anybody that’s listening around the country, you are very welcome to join us at Lake Nona. Okay. I mean, you don’t have to live in you know, Orlando, Lake Nona. Please, you know, make the trip. I think it’ll be worth it. Plus, you can see the UST National Campus. Um, registration for that should be live in a couple weeks. But in the meantime, um, anybody can go to uh LinkTree backslash cardio tennis to find all the information.Carolyn 10:01

Okay, so if we wanted to take do this here in North Carolina where we’re located, do we ask our CTA? Do we ask our pro? How do we do this if we want to be a part of this event? Exactly.Michele 10:13

And I’m hoping that your listeners um are a little excited about this and think, oh yeah, I would like to, I would like to do this here. So please, yes, speak to your um your racket staff, your tennis staff. Tell them that you heard about this. Uh you know, you as a member client would like to be involved. And then all they need to do is go to cardiotenisinstructor.com and they click on a link and they’re registering their site. So I need sites to register, right? Because the that’s the only way I know who’s participating. And my goal for this year is 300 locations across the country. All right. So we’re gonna help you get that. Thank you.Erin 10:54

Because Carol and I are both gonna do one at our club. Yes, we got two more already, right? We’re gonna force, yeah, we’re gonna force our pros. Yep. Um, so do you need, like, for instance, we at my club, we do uh our pros run like Friday night mixers. Yep. At least once a month, sometimes twice a month. So do they just need to say, like, I’m gonna have four courts and X amount of participants? They don’t have to actually register people’s names. No. Good.Michele 11:19

Correct. So all they’re doing when they register is they’re putting in their their name and their club and their email, and it’s just saying we’re participating as a host. Okay. And then when they do that, they get access to all the resources. Okay. So the marketing pieces, the education, they’ll get updates on things that are happening on that they would want to know about as we lead up to the big event.Erin 11:42

Okay, great. Yeah. Yeah. I’m gonna, I’m gonna force this on my club this week. Because it’s a party. It sounds like so much fun.Michele 11:51

So if you know, even if you talk, if um, if you’re a listener and you talk to your tennis coach and they don’t want to do it in May, I would, or they can’t for because of scheduling purposes, ask them to do it another time. So it doesn’t have to be that particular weekend, although it would help my numbers.

Players Can Run It Too

Erin 12:08

Right. We have a goal. We have a goal. I have a question. This might sound strange, but could I run? I’m not a coach. I’m a four-o mediocre, four-o player, but like there’s a um, we have some pretty social people at our club that sometimes they just go, we’re gonna get together again, you know, Friday night, Saturday night, whatever. I have four courts booked, who who can be out there? But again, like you said, that becomes a the numbers have to be even or someone’s sitting out, or um, and when you first said, I’m gonna go back to what you said several minutes ago about it being a 90 minute to a two hour event, I was thinking, that doesn’t sound long enough. But when you’re doing cardio tennis and hit to be fit, like Carol and I learned this summer, and it was scorching hot when we did it. Yep, you’re like people are like, I’ll sit out, yeah, you know. Um, but could I run it as like just a social, you know, if I had like however many. I mean, I could easily get 20 to 25 people on courts on a Friday night if I could, you know, if I have enough courts to book at my club. Is that something that I could just do if I didn’t have someone? Absolutely. Oh good. Oh, good, okay.Michele 13:07

In my world, I can’t rely on tennis staff all the time because they’re very busy, understandably so. So, yes, um, people like yourselves who love tennis, who have some good tennis knowledge, we we encourage you, actually strongly encourage you to run this type of an event. And that’s why I was so focused on making sure there was education so that as a you know, non-tennis teaching person, that you could review that education and you would know exactly what to do. Okay, giving you the tools, the agendas right there. There’s an agenda, it’s broken down in time hacks. It’s very self-explanatory. So again, listen, listeners out there, if you’re, you know, whatever level you are, if you like to organize things, if you have energy, if you like bringing groups of people together, you do not have to rely on tennis staff to make this happen.Erin 14:13

That’s really good to know. Because there are, I mean, there’s also a lot of groups, you know, just outside USTA that are just social people that get together and play. So this would be something great for them to run. And you could run it at your club. I know. Even if you can’t get your your pro involved.Carolyn 14:27

Yeah, and even I have neighbors that don’t play tennis, but they could play this.Erin 14:32

Yes.Carolyn 14:32

So, you know, or this could be a good leadway into it. It’s a good segue. Is that it doesn’t matter if you just starting or you’re a 4-0, everybody can play together. Right, which is really nice.Michele 14:43

And I’m here to support anybody, all right. So, again, listeners, if this is something that’s interesting you to you and you go to cardio tennis instructor.com and you register, um, I’m I’m very available and accessible be via email and text, and I would be more than happy to help anybody walk them through this.

Carolyn 15:06

Thanks to Michelle for coming on the podcast. We’ve included a link where you can find more information on all things cardio tennis and national hit to be fit weekend. We have one more episode with Michelle where we discuss why everyone should be using a red, orange, or green ball, whether you are a two-five or Roger Federer. So we hope you check that out. Thanks so much for listening and hope to see you on the courts soon. Thanks to Michelle for coming on the podcast. We’ve included links in our show notes where you can learn more about National Hit to Be Fit weekend, or you can register to host a hit to be fit event. Also, we discuss why everyone should be using the red ball, the orange ball, or the green ball, whether you are a 2 5 beginner or Roger Federer. So we hope you check that out. Thanks so much for listening and hope to see you on the courts soon.

The post Ep. 316: National Hit to be Fit Weekend appeared first on Second Serve Tennis Podcast.

Tennis, and especially adult recreational tennis, is a little strange with all the etiquette, protocols, and manners involved in a match. Also, what one person considers bad manners another may not. In this episode, Erin discusses situations she has had with opponents who she believes did not have the best tennis manners.  Carolyn mostly agrees, but we learned that bad manners can be very subjective!

Here’s a complete transcript of our conversation about Tennis Manners:

Carolyn 0:08

Hi everyone, this is Carolyn and I’m here with Erin. And Aaron actually came up with this topic uh of tennis manners. Um Erin, do you want to talk a little bit about a situation you had recently? And um then we started laughing and talking about different strange or I guess interesting things that happened on the tennis court because adult tennis is a little, or just tennis in general, I guess, is a little strange at all the protocols and the etiquette and the manners involved. So can you talk a little bit about it?SPEAKER_00 0:38

Yeah, um, I was thinking about that column called Miss Manners that was probably written year, I mean decades ago. But anyway, so I was thinking of like, you know, there’s there’s like these a lot of unwritten rules. And our friend Angela actually asked us some of those unwritten rules at one point, right? About like who does this and who does that? So one of the things that happened um to me recently was I was playing a singles match at our club. And um, well, the first thing that happened was I was playing the captain of the team that we were facing, and it was um singles court. So we had three singles courts, and um she came onto the court where we were warming up right at match time. So, Tim, in my mind, it’s like we have to exchange lineups. You have your five to 15 minutes to warm up, and then you’re supposed to start within 15 minutes of actual match time, right? Right. So she was just walking on. So I approached her and I said, Hi, I’m Aaron, you know, you’re the captain, let’s exchange lineup. And she did not look at me, did not, I mean, she did. She was, I think she was on the phone or something, but I was like, I just got this vibe that she wasn’t, didn’t want to, you know, didn’t want to talk to me. I kind of found out later, I think she was trying to figure out about her three teammates who was gonna play on singles one, singles two, singles three, but okay. Anyway, it didn’t matter. It was just a little bit, it was just a little bit odd, you know, and you know, maybe that’s a manners thing, and everybody thinks, you know, everybody has different manners. So, you know, that was just uh her. But once we started, we started our warm-up, she hit the ball into the net a few times. And so she asked me if the uh net had been measured recently, and I didn’t know the answer to it. But our pro was there, and I said, Oh, let me get our pro to go ahead and do that because I don’t have a measuring tape in my bag. I couldn’t even tell you what the net is supposed to be at. I think it’s exactly, but I could be wrong. Um, so before I even had time to like kind of glance around and look for our pro, she had gone to her bag, grabbed a measuring tape, and started measuring it. But the problem was that she’s she moved it, like she she pulled the strap right away and like was gonna correct it, but it had it was actually correct in the first place. So then we had to take some time to like go through and pull the strap down and make sure it was set right and all. So to me, that was, and I don’t want to use the word rude, but manners-wise, we I was the home team, I was the home captain, even. I wasn’t just like a player out there not knowing what to do. I was the captain. She asked me a question, didn’t let me even fix it, and she went ahead and just boom started doing it, and then kind of messed up the whole situation. And it took like five or 10 minutes to kind of get it set. So I just thought that was um a little odd. Um yes, yes. So I don’t know. Did were you there that day? Did you see that? You didn’t see that happen.Carolyn 3:27

I didn’t see that happen. I can’t remember anyway. I didn’t saw part of the message. I didn’t know that. Um, yeah, but I always knew when someone’s measuring the nets that I my experience is it’s normally pretty intense after that. Um, or they’re really into it. You know enough to measure it and to have something to measure it, then you’re not messing around.SPEAKER_00 3:46

Yeah, I don’t know. Um, I don’t even know what the right height is. I should. And there’s actually like measuring devices specifically for tennis. Yes. Nets, but maybe I should get one as the captain. But um, and then the other um thing that happened, and again, this isn’t a manners thing, it’s just like uh everyone’s personality is so different. But um, I had this woman show up and to a singles match and had her own chair. Again, like we had benches, we have, you know, and I know it’s a little odd maybe to sit next to your opponent, but you can sit on a bench and sip your water and not say anything if you don’t want to talk. Um, but she like put a chair on like a completely, I would say like eight feet away from me. Yes, which is fine. Because I know that’s you like to not talk to people. So I totally understood her, but it does feel odd and awkward in an adult rec tennis match. I don’t think that probably happens that often. Maybe it happens more at states where it’s more intense or something, but this was like a casual summer league where I just thought I wasn’t gonna chit chat with her because I clearly knew I could read the room. Like her personality was like, don’t chit chat with me. But it was just funny to have like, and you did show up later and you were like, what’s with the chair like 20 feet away?Carolyn 5:03

See, that’s really interesting, Erin, because I saw that match also where someone was had a chair and put it really far away from everyone else. And in my mind, I thought that’s really smart. And then I started doing it for my single smart. Well, well, because of COVID, part of it was because of COVID, but also kind of just to be away from everyone else. Um, right, is it’s better for me. So, but I think that’s interesting how you know you took it. It’s strange to see at like for a fun match to see someone take a chair and put it away from everyone. But mine specifically, I’m like, oh, that’s really smart, especially with COVID to put all your stuff away from everyone. That I agree with. The COVID thing I absolutely agree with.SPEAKER_00 5:46

And maybe that was it. It definitely could have been that.Carolyn 5:48

Oh, I had one for you. I remember this, and I don’t know what to do in this situation. Who changes the scoreboard? I always find it very awkward. Like it’s like we both walk up, then there’s like we stare at each other, then I do it, and then I don’t know if they don’t like that that I’m doing it.SPEAKER_00 6:04

Is it that people like to change it every single time? Like, you know, even on an even like not even on a changeover, and especially in, and I don’t disagree with this, and frankly, I don’t care. If someone wants to change it every time and that’s their quirk, I have no problem with that. You know, change the scoreboard every time. Um, but um, especially in match tie breaks, I’m actually not against that, except it does uh sometimes mess with the flow. If you’re changing it every single time, every single point, because at least in a game, you know, you could go four points or maybe it’s eight points or twelve points, depending on how many deuces you go to. Then it doesn’t mess up the flow if you change it, you know, uh between games. But if you change it every single time, like during a set or a match tie break, that to me is um distracting because you’re doing it after every single point. But who does it is a very good question. Here’s my philosophy. Let’s hear it. I don’t personally care. I try, if I am the away opponent, if I’m at someone else’s courts, I certainly try to establish some sort of like who wants to do this, you know, like it’s your home courts, it’s you know, your it’s up to you, it’s your job. I don’t personally care if anybody does it at ours or not. And part of that is two things for me. Number one, I tend to focus on tennis and not not that I don’t focus on the score, but sometimes like there’s so much to think about that I will oftentimes either call the score wrong. Like sometimes, like if I’m up 40-30, I might say 30-40 and then go, oh no, sorry, sorry, 40-30, knowing the numbers are right, but I have them in the wrong order. So I might do that with a scoreboard too. So I personally don’t care if somebody else does the scoreboard and I just like check them, or if I do it every single time, I literally say to my opponents or my team or my partner, watch every time I change this, then I’m doing it correctly. Um, so and then here’s the other thing too. This is the weird part of my personality, and it comes down to superstition. If I’ve changed it and I’m winning, then I would prefer to keep changing it. If I’ve changed it and I’ve lost, like I might want to switch it up and have someone else touch it or do it, right?Carolyn 8:15

Yes, that so that’s really interesting because I play doubles with someone who um refuses to change the scoreboard or she doesn’t want to do it, she says that it’s bad luck. So she doesn’t want to change the scoreboard. I don’t care, or I’m fine changing it, but I just didn’t know. Like I I just think it’s kind of interesting that you know, some people don’t want to change it, some people do. Yeah, is there someone that should? And it’s always this awkward, did you change it? A lot of times as I notice we switch sides and then nobody’s changed it. And so I’m always like running up to change it because I don’t want to forget games. Um, but right. But you is it normally the home team that you let do it? And if they don’t, then you do it.SPEAKER_00 9:00

I think if we were talking of I would think if we’re talking about it in a manners situation, it’s probably best to defer to the home team to do it. Okay. Same with, oh, we should just talk about spinning the racket, right? Oh, yes. Anyone can do it, but I it’s almost always in my mind come down to the home team spins. Yes. It doesn’t have to be that way, but it’s you’re you are the host of the match. You know, even if you’re at a city, you don’t have to be at a country club or a, you know, or tennis club. Um, you know, if you’re city courts, you’re someone is always assigned the home team or the away team. So I typically let, and I will say to people, like, you’re the home team, why don’t you? I might initiate the spin, but I would say you’re the home team, you know, why don’t you spin? Some people don’t have like the bottom of the racket has like a weird symbol or they don’t want to spin the racket. Yes. Um, and so they might go like, oh, you know, who has the best racket to spin with? But I think in just like prompting the home team to at least start that process somehow, whether they want to have somebody else do it, or that that to me would be the the right thing to do.Carolyn 10:05

Yes, I agree with that. And then you’re the captain, so you enter scores a lot. Who enters the scores? Oh, that’s a good one.

Captain’s Responsibilities in Tennis Matches

SPEAKER_00 10:11

That’s a really good question. So the USTA says anybody can enter the scores. And I think that they say that because, yeah, I think they say that because they want scores entered quickly. I used to play on a team when I first started out where I had a captain, she was a great captain, but she would constantly forget after the match if we won to enter the scores. And so I would like obsessively watch for like a couple days to see if they had been entered. And there was a lot of times where I wanted to enter them because I knew, you know, I knew all three courts or five courts or whatever, I knew who played on what. And um, but I might have even been the co-captain, but I didn’t feel like it was my place to do it. But it really is anyone can do it. But typically, I think the unwritten, you know, rule, manners, whatever you want to call it, is the the winning team is supposed to enter. Now, I do think it comes down to like now I’ve captained for so long. I feel like if even if I was the losing captain, I have all the scores and know who’s played on what courts, I would probably just enter them. Um, but it it’s supposed, I mean, manners-wise, um, protocol, whatever you want to call it, it should be the winning team. But if they don’t enter it for a while, really anybody can do it. Right. Two other things that come to mind, and I know we’ve done previous episodes on them, but um as a captain, the courtesy slash nice mismanners thing to do as the um host, whether again, if you’re at a city court, you could be the home or away captain, whatever, but it should fall under the person, the captain that is hosting the match as the home team should contact the other captain and just confirm. Just say, looks like weather’s good, you know, for tomorrow or next week or whenever you’re confirming it. You know, sometimes I’ll say, like, you know, don’t forget where we’re playing, there’s no water on the courts, or you know, the bathrooms are far away, or we have ice and water and towels, you know, whatever. Just kind of give them. Or if you know your court numbers, that’s a really nice thing to do ahead of time for the opposing team is just to say, here’s where we’re playing, here’s what it looks like, here’s what we, you know, here’s what’s going on. Um, so that’s a good manners thing to do. What was the other one that we just talked about? Oh, we also talked about before. Courts to play on.Carolyn 12:26

Mm-hmm.unknown 12:27

Yeah.SPEAKER_00 12:28

Yes.Carolyn 12:28

Like who plays on what court? Yes.SPEAKER_00 12:31

Yeah. So several, several years, many, many years ago, um, we were the home team and we had a club show up, and um, we only had a singles court. I mean, I’m sorry, we only had a hard court available for the singles match. And then we were waiting for other courts to open up for the doubles or something, but singles had to get started. So our captain, it was not me at the time, my captain said to the other team, we’re gonna put the singles one player on hard court one or whatever. Right. And the other team, the woman that was playing singles, almost outright refused because we have clay courts and hard courts at our club. And the fact is, it was bad manners for her to refuse because you can’t. You play where you are assigned to. You can obviously negotiate. I mean, maybe our captain didn’t even want to play there either. And maybe she could have said, hey, you know, we would rather wait and put singles on a clay court or whatever. But we did not have a choice at that time. And the rule, the the deal was that was the court that she and the other singles player were assigned to. She almost outright refused to play. It took about 15 minutes to convince her that that was where she was playing, or she was going to forfeit the match. And that’s again, that’s super awkward in adult rec tennis, but the the that’s the rule. Like the home team gets to choose where what court you’re playing, whatever match on. There’s certainly a lot of courtesy given. If certain people don’t like to play on hard courts, maybe they have bad knees, maybe they’re older, maybe you know, they have an injury, you know, whatever it is. But the the nice mismanners thing to do is to play where you are assigned.Carolyn 14:08

The right.SPEAKER_00 14:08

Right. That’s all I have to say.Carolyn 14:12

Thanks very much to Aaron for discussing this. We hope you’ll check out our website, which is secondservepodcast.com. You can listen to all of our episodes directly from the website by searching the topic you’re interested in. We also have information about ratings, rules, tennis gear, and more on our resources page. Thanks so much for listening and hope to see you on the courts of the city.

The post Ep. 315: Tennis Manners appeared first on Second Serve Tennis Podcast.

You can learn more about ratings on the USTA website: NTRP Ratings Questions & Answers

Jenifer is Vice President of the USTA Southern Board of Directors. She also currently serves on the USTA Adult League Committee and Regulation Subcommittee and previously served on the USTA Constitution & Rules Committee.

At the Southern sectional level, Jenifer most recently served as the chair of the USTA Southern Adult League Committee and was a member of that committee for five terms. She is also the long-time chair of the USTA Southern League Grievance Committee. A former USTA Arkansas president, she continues to serve on the USTA Arkansas Board as a past president and as chair of the USTA Arkansas Adult League and League Grievance committees.

An attorney and resident of Fayetteville, Arkansas, Jenifer is involved in League tennis in Northwest Arkansas after serving as the areas’s local league coordinator for five years. She is also a 4.5 player!

Here’s a complete transcript of our conversation about USTA League Urband Legends:

Carolyn: 0:06

Hi, this is Carolyn and I’m here with Erin and we have Jenifer Tucker back on the podcast to discuss urban legends. She did an episode for us previously on self rates and we had so many more questions that we thought we’d do another episode on urban legends. On urban legends, Jenifer is the vice president of the USTA Southern Board of Directors. She also serves on the USTA Adult League Committee. She was a former president of USTA Arkansas and she was a local league coordinator and a 4-5 player. Okay, let’s start with some rapid fire questions about urban legends. Erin, will you start us off?Erin: 0:41

Okay, here’s my first rapid fire question about an urban legend In certain parts of the country players are required to play straight up or order of strength. Is that true? That is false, elaborate. So the reason I’m asking this question is because we play in North Carolina. We have a lot of players that come from the Northeast and I’ve had players at our club say you know, our number one doubles has to be the, the, the strongest team, and then it goes from number one doubles down to two, three and singles are supposed to play strongest on one and strongest on two. In our area we flip courts all the time based on who we’re going to play. But some people have said I heard it’s a rule that you’re supposed to play in order of strength.Jenifer: 1:29

Yeah, I think in certain areas of the country you can certainly have traditions or you can certainly have groups of people who prefer doing it a certain way, but there cannot be any kind of rule in USTA League requiring any sort of order of strength lineup.Carolyn: 1:48

And we did a self-rate episode where we kind of discussed this, but I thought that was important to also include in our Urban Legends, which is you need three strikes as a self-rate or appeal to be de-cued. That’s actually true.Jenifer: 2:00

As a self-rated player, you have to have a sufficient number of strikes to be disqualified and that is when your dynamic rating, or the rating to 100th of a point, hits a certain threshold three different times. As a self-rated player, grievance, but that would be specifically limited to whether you have inappropriately not disclosed some of your tennis experience in your self-rate questionnaire.Carolyn: 2:31

Can you tell us real quick what is a?Jenifer: 2:32

strike. So dynamic ratings are hundredth to the hundredth of a point. So for example, 3.01 to 3.5. Every time you play another player, the computer is going to have an expected outcome of that match. So for example, if a 3.01, a 3.5 player and a 3.49, a 3.5 player play each other, the expected outcome is 6-0, 6-0. For every game that differs, you may very well, for example, have the 3.49 player winning 6-1, 6-1, in which case that player’s dynamic rating would actually go down. The 3.01 player would actually go up. So those are the general parameters. When a self-rated player generates a certain threshold above their assigned rating, they will get a strike. So three strikes means you’re disqualified at that level.Carolyn: 3:41

Okay, that’s great. I have another self-rate question as far as an urban legend and I’ve always kind of noticed this myself, but I wanted to hear what you have to say and that is you can’t get DQ’d at the actual state championship, sectionals or nationals. Like I’ve seen a lot of people, right Erin, get DQ’d after the state championship, or they go to sectionals and they beat all these people, but like, let’s say, you get your third strike at your very first match at the sectionals, do you get DQ’d at that point or at the end of the tournament?Jenifer: 4:15

In Southern section you would get disqualified at the conclusion of the championship and those matches would stand. But the national regs allow the sections to determine if they would prefer to run those calculations while in the championship.Erin: 4:31

It would have helped me if people could get disqualified during the tournament, because that happened to us, to Carolyn and I on our 3-5 team, right, yes, yes, she got DQ’d afterwards, but it would have been great if she got DQ’d before the end of the state championship before she beat us.Jenifer: 4:48

I would say that you should submit a regulation change proposal, but probably not best justification to use your personal experience.Erin: 4:58

Oh, jennifer’s going to love this question. This is an urban legend about coaching. This is an urban legend about coaching. So some people think in adult rec tennis that coaching is allowed in certain USTA matches for our adult rec players. Now I would argue that I would like to see that happen at some point. But talk about the urban legend. Is there any coaching in USTA adult rec matches?Jenifer: 5:22

No coaching is allowed in USTA league matches and I’m not really sure what you could benefit from that, Erin.Erin: 5:30

Well, I’ve said it before so much, I’ve said it before Probably much, I’ve said it before Probably not a lot, but it would make it interesting and I see all the reasons not to do it, but not to bring up another Carolyn singles loss in the past.Erin: 5:48

But we were at States and she was playing a very tall woman and she was slicing and won the first set 6-0, right, yes, 6-0. 6-0. And then the woman changed her entire game and she started coming to the net and Carolyn decided she was going to change her game because that woman, you know, had a different strategy and Carolyn stopped her slicing and she started trying to lob her and the woman was like six feet tall. It didn’t work, and so I wanted so badly to tell Carolyn to go back to what was working, but I couldn’t and I’m not a cheater and I really wanted to follow her into the bathroom between sets and tell her what to do, but I don’t know that it would have helped. But that’s why I oftentimes think I wish someone could tell me something about the player that I’m playing that might help me.Carolyn: 6:33

Yeah, I’m dying out here, exactly.Jenifer: 6:35

Well, the first that I’m playing, that might help me. Yeah, I’m dying out here, exactly. Well, the first thing I was going to say is perhaps Carolyn did figure that out, and she just didn’t execute. Perhaps that could be the case. The other is what’s so great about tennis is you’re out there by yourself problem solving, and I think that’s that’s one of the rationales that no coaching is allowed. And it’s again adult league tennis.Carolyn: 6:53

So it’s very important allowed and it’s again adult league tennis.Erin: 6:55

So it’s very important. Yes, exactly. Oh yeah, the rec match is important. Yes, not the coaching, the match.Carolyn: 7:02

The match. Okay, I have another one. If I beat a player 6-0, 6-0, I should get bombed.Jenifer: 7:07

So I think part of the discussion when we talk about the ratings may have answered that. But again, each match that you play has an expected outcome and to the extent that you do better or worse than that expected outcome, you’re going to either raise or lower your dynamic rating. The fact of the matter is there are 50 different little ratings within each assigned rating and some players are always supposed to lose those matches if they’re at the lower end of that rating. So a 6-0, 6-0 loss or win should be maybe exactly what the computer projected.Erin: 7:47

It’s funny this was not on our list, but it makes me think there are a lot of people that believe if they play singles it somehow helps their rating, right. So it’s not necessarily that you’re playing singles or you’re playing doubles or you know. It really has to do with the computer. If I’m playing singles against Carolyn, if we didn’t know each other, we’re opponents. The computer still has an idea of what should happen in that match. It has nothing to do with oh, because I’m on a singles court now.Jenifer: 8:17

I have a better chance of getting bumped correct. That’s right. I mean it’s going to be an expected outcome, but clearly to the extent that there’s a difference because there’s somebody else on the court that dynamic to consider. So singles obviously it’s opponent versus opponent, whereas in a doubles match all four players dynamics will be considered. But that’s the only difference. There will be an expected outcome in each case.Erin: 8:40

So I think this answers it, but one of the other questions further down on our list is if I play number one like number one line, I will get bumped.Jenifer: 8:49

Yeah, again, I think a lot of those urban legends are geared towards if this, then I get bumped, if this, then I don’t get bumped. And the bottom line is, I think, if you just think about it in summary, as there is an expected outcome based upon the dynamic ratings of the players on the court and if you beat or don’t beat that expected outcome, you go up or down and that’s really all that affects that number.Carolyn: 9:14

The next one is if you play college tennis, you are automatically a 5-0. And I know that’s wrong, because I’ve played some people that play college tennis and they were not a 5-0.Jenifer: 9:24

On the self-rate questionnaire, there are going to be minimum levels that are assigned to specific levels of experience high school and then drill down how much high school did you play? At what championship level did you play high school? And the same is true in college what level of college did you play? So certainly there are going to be minimum assigned ratings based upon the experience, based on the age, and then, even though a rating may be assigned for example, if my experience points to 5.0, I can still file a self-rate appeal, and if my section self-rate appeals committee grants my appeal to 4.5 from a 5.0, then that’s a way I can legitimately get a different rating as well. So, yeah, there are general rules and general guidelines in terms of what experience will yield a certain assignment of minimum rating, but there are a variety of factors in play, as well as the ability to file a self-rate appeal.Erin: 10:17

So I used to think that any like we’ve faced D1 college players before, but not college tennis players I used to actually think if you were a D1 college player of some sport or pro like we’ve actually interviewed pro professional athletes like in different sports baseball you know whatever that they had to come in at a certain rating. Is that incorrect?Jenifer: 10:43

Yeah, there’s currently no question on the self-rate questionnaire that asks about college football, for example, or college basketball. There are routinely high-level college athletes playing tennis and it doesn’t necessarily mean, because you may be an all-pro wide receiver, that you can hit a tennis ball well. So I think that’s the reason. But no, there’s currently no question on the self-rate questionnaire involving college sports other than racket sports.Erin: 11:09

So all those D1 volleyball players that I’m facing, I know they’re so good, they’re so good.Jenifer: 11:14

Yeah, and when you have, when you’re playing a sport that has a lot of that, has an element of hand-eye coordination, when you self-rate, the guidelines do say that you should be mindful of the ability that you have based upon those sports and your ability and your probably capacity to improve, and then you should self-rate accordingly. But that’s a should and not must, and so many players don’t necessarily rate it allowing that time for improvement.Carolyn: 11:42

And this is kind of a follow-up question I did have real quick, which was it’s your section that determines your appeal of your self-rate. So I go in and do my self-rate form. We live in the Southern section, which is what? What is it? Jennifer, 25% of adult players are in this section, but it’s Southern that will determine whether or not the appeal gets approved. So everybody across the country that’s listening, if they’re not in the Southern section, their own section will do that. Is that correct?Jenifer: 12:08

That’s right. Each section will have a committee or a group of people who will review those self-rate appeals, and in Southern we have committees that do that.Erin: 12:20

Okay, Last question about Urban Legends, even though we could talk all day about it.Jenifer: 12:33

Okay, last question about urban legends, even though we could talk all day about it. But are the third party websites there? Are multiple sites that maybe some of us crazy captains look at for people’s dynamic ratings. Are those legit? But USTA does not endorse NTRP ratings that are generated from any other third-party sites. The third-party websites cannot accurately recreate the algorithm and, as a result, we don’t use those at all for any USTA processes, including grievance processes.Carolyn: 12:57

So during your grievance like when we file a grievance we shouldn’t say this person has a tennis record of something.Jenifer: 13:04

No, that’s fake news.Erin: 13:07

That is not going to fly with the grievance committee. Yeah.Carolyn: 13:12

Yeah, that’s perfect. I do have a question. You don’t have to answer this, but to me this whole algorithm, your NTRP dynamic rating, it seems like something in a black box. How can we learn more about it?Jenifer: 13:29

I think that the basic information that you’re looking for is on the USTA website. There’s an NTRP set of frequently asked questions that give a fairly detailed amount of guidance. I think maybe what players should remember is just go out and play. There’s really no players, I know, want so badly to know their rating to 100s, but I would ask to what end. But there has to be some sort of algorithm and some sort of basis, because our sport, our league tennis, is based upon fair-based play and so many recreational sports are not. You could play in a I will just pick out a sport kickball league and I could walk on the court and never having played kickball and be playing a professional kickball player. So we really work hard in league tennis to have fair-based plays. There has to be a system, and I think this is the best system we have, and to the extent that players are trying to find out more and more and more information again, I would ask why? And let’s just go play.Carolyn: 14:32

Great answer. Why do you think Erin? Because we’re crazy league players. Exactly.Erin: 14:36

No, and I agree with that 100%. I get into the, you know, I want to know who we’re facing and what their ratings are and where I should best put my players and all that stuff. But when it comes down to it, if you are in it for the reason which you should be, which is competitive but fun Um, and you have a sport and you’re an adult, um, and you’re outside or inside playing the sport of tennis, just enjoy it and don’t try to overthink it. I just think a lot of us are a little type A and like to control it all Competitive yeah.Erin: 15:06

But yes, 100 percent, you’re there to have fun.Jenifer: 15:08

Yeah, it’s a lot of fun to talk about, but again, I think the USDA provides a fair amount of information on the website If folks will go to that.Erin: 15:18

Those frequently asked questions Then we wouldn’t have so many urban legends, if they did their homework, that’s true.Carolyn: 15:27

Thanks again to Jennifer for coming on the podcast. We hope you check out our website, which is SecondServePodcastcom. Thanks so much for listening and hope to see you on the court soon. 

The post Ep. 314: USTA League Urban Legends appeared first on Second Serve Tennis Podcast.

We were thrilled to speak to Jenifer Tucker about self rates. Jenifer is Vice President of the USTA Southern Board of Directors.  She also currently serves on the USTA Adult League Committee and Regulation Subcommittee and previously served on the USTA Constitution & Rules Committee.  

At the Southern sectional level, Jenifer most recently served as the chair of the USTA Southern Adult League Committee and was a member of that committee for five terms.  She is also the long-time chair of the USTA Southern League Grievance Committee.  A former USTA Arkansas president, she continues to serve on the USTA Arkansas Board as a past president and as chair of the USTA Arkansas Adult League and League Grievance committees.  

An attorney and resident of Fayetteville, Arkansas, Jenifer is involved in League tennis in Northwest Arkansas after serving as the areas’s local league coordinator for five years. She is also a 4.5 player!

Here’s a Complete Transcript of Our Conversation with Jenifer

Hi, this is Carolyn, and I’m here with Erin, and we are thrilled to interview Jenifer Tucker. Jenifer is vice president of the USTA Southern Board Directors. She also currently serves on the USTA Adult League Committee. She is the longtime chair of the USTA Southern League Grievance Committee. She was a former president of USTA Arkansas. She is an attorney and was a local league coordinator, and she is a four or five player. She’s also on a bunch of other committees, but we don’t have enough time to list them. So, Jenifer, thank you so much. We are so excited to interview you. And let’s start off and talk about self-rates. Can you talk a little bit about the process and appeals and anything we should know?Jenifer: 0:44

So when you start the process of self-rating, you’re either going to be coming in to leagues new or coming into leagues after you’ve set out for a while. So you’re going to complete what’s called a self-rate questionnaire and you’re going to answer all those questions honestly and accurately, disclosing all of your experience. And then what those questions will do is to assign a minimum rating. And at that point, if you’re not satisfied with what that assignment is, you can then do a self-rate appeal. And what that is, is that you literally just click the button after you have self-rated and write down at that point, it’s your one-shot everything that you think would be relevant as to why that minimum assignment isn’t accurate. And the Southern Self-Rate Appeals Committee, so volunteers, actual people will look at those decisions or look at those uh appeal reasons and make a decision as to whether your reasons are sufficient enough to really override that self-rate questionnaire.Carolyn: 1:42

What if I’m the person that plays this the person that has a 4-0 self-rate? Can I then file a grievance? Like how does what can I do?Jenifer: 1:53

So if you’ve gone through that process correctly and you’ve answered all those questions honestly and appropriately, and you’ve gone through the appeal process and you’re granted an appeal, then you’ve done what you’re supposed to do. Now you may be able to be DQ’ dynamically, that is, by your play, which is the computer assessing whether you’ve hit the number of strikes for your dynamics. But in terms of anyone else complaining about you, the only sufficient real basis for a grievance would be a self-rate grievance. And you, Carolyn, would would basically file the grievance and say, I played this player. I believe he played college tennis. He didn’t disclose that college tennis on his self-rate questionnaire. Therefore, I’m filing a grievance. But if he did file the, he did complete the self-rate questionnaire, honestly, there would be no really basis to uphold that grievance.Erin: 2:43

Okay, that explains a lot to me. Now, because, for instance, we had a friend play a woman who was self-rated in tri-level this year, which now tri-level counts towards ratings, and she they didn’t get rocked, but she clearly knew the woman wasn’t at her correct level. Well, she didn’t think she was at her correct level. So she went to our state coordinator, and our state coordinator came back and said she filled out, she did disclose that she played in college. And I think that’s what when you said that. So it’s not that she didn’t disclose it or that she’s just so good that she shouldn’t be at that rating. She would get basically DQ’d or in trouble, we’ll say, if she didn’t actually answer the questionnaire correctly. If she answered it correctly and the computer said you are a 3-5 or you are a 4-0, she’s allowed to play at that level because she answered all the questions correctly. So it sounds like my friend just complaining to our state coordinator isn’t good enough to get someone DQ’d or, you know, right in front of a board. Is that correct?Jenifer: 3:39

There are basically two ways to get DQ’d. And what I call this is not uh a regulation language, this is my language. Uh, you can get DQ’d an objective way, which is the computer reviews will will know your dynamic ratings after every match you play. So that is an objective way. In other words, there are no people involved. Or you can get disqualified by a grievance, and that would be if you didn’t disclose something properly on your self-rate questionnaire, a player could file a grievance or a coordinator could file a grievance, and a committee at that point would then review whether you’ve answered those questions inappropriately, at which point you would be DQ’d. So one has to do with the computer, the other has to do with people in terms of how you get DQ’d, grievance versus dynamic DQ by a computer.Erin: 4:30

So is that grievance committee? I just I pictured as like a panel of you sitting around, like in a court of law. Um, but so however many people that there are on that committee, does that mean that you guys have to almost investigate? Like, do you have to look to see are they playing by their real name? Are they, did they play in college and they didn’t disclose it? Like, do you have to do Google searches on people? How do you find that information out?Jenifer: 4:54

So typically these NTRP grievances are coming to us at the Southern League Grievance Committee level by coordinators. So all NTRP grievances, these self-rate grievances, come directly to the Southern Adult League Grievance Committee. They don’t, they’re not heard locally. And typically what will happen is a coordinator, be it a local league coordinator or a state league coordinator, will file those grievances. And in those cases where coordinators are filing, they’ll really provide most of the information that is necessary. So, for example, if a player has played in college, and I’ll make it easier, is playing at 3.0 and they’re 27 years old, and someone has heard that they’ve played Division I college tennis. At that point, it’s fairly easy to Google that person’s name, see them on their college tennis roster. The coordinator will provide that link, will provide the self-rate questionnaire. Those are fairly straightforward and simple. But yes, there are other times when maybe a captain has filed a grievance and there’s some suspicion, but they may not have all the evidence necessary, at which point either coordinator or the committee or both will do a little bit further investigation.Erin: 6:07

Google searching. Google search, Google searching. Do you ever follow anyone out to the court and watch them play?Jenifer: 6:15

Contrary to popular opinion, there’s no eye test for these. These are going to be limited to whether a person completed that self-rate questionnaire appropriately.Erin: 6:27

Okay. Has anyone sent in video of someone playing to prove their point? They’ve submitted it, but we’ve not reviewed it.Jenifer: 6:34

We get pictures, we get YouTube videos, we’ve got all sorts of evidence. And again, it’s it’s like the old verifier in terms of the rating. The ratings are not based upon the eye test or pros’ opinion or a captain’s opinion.Carolyn: 6:48

And so just to reiterate so that I have this correct, because people ask us questions all the time. For me to get DQ’s, I’m a self-rate. Let’s say I’m a 3-0 self-rate. For me to get DQ’d, it can only be by the computer and then, or it can be where I lied when filling out the self-rate form. That’s basically it. That’s right.Jenifer: 7:09

That’s simplified. That’s it. For example, I think the most common misconception is I can play a player next week and I get beat 6060. And I think to myself, there is no way that player is rated X. I’m going to call my local league coordinator. The local league coordinator can do nothing about that. The coordinator, as Erin mentioned, can look up and make sure those players have answered those questions appropriately. But contrary to popular opinion, someone telling on you, quote unquote, is not going to get someone DQ’d unless a grievance is filed, alleging that the person has not disclosed their experience appropriately.Carolyn: 7:48

And this question kind of goes, we’re going to talk about urban legends in our next episode. But is it correct that from a computer perspective, there has to be three strikes against you or three matches where you, I guess, score higher? I think this may be important for the self-rate episode too.Jenifer: 8:07

Right. So when a player is self-rated, the player is assigned a general rating, a 3.5, a 4.0. And the computer is going to come up with an expected outcome every time that player plays a match. And it’s not based upon a one-loss record, but it’s going to be an expected outcome. And every time that player plays a match, a dynamic rating is going to be generated. That is a rating to the 100th of a point. And there is a threshold at every level under which a player, if he he or she jumps above that, would receive what’s called a strike. So if the player receives three strikes, which is going above that threshold three times after three matches, then they would be disqualified at that level. And that’s not for computer rates at this point. It’s only for self-rates. Is it for appeals too? Also for appeals. Okay. Appeal-rated players.Erin: 8:59

So are you saying that it does not go for like if like I’m a computer-rated 4-0? If I’m playing and I’m just rocking it, let’s say, you know, spring’s about to start and I’m just rocking it. I’m beating everybody 6060. Now, as a computer-rated 4-0, could I get disqualified?Jenifer: 9:14

No, as a computer-rated player, you could not be disqualified during the season. You will be you could be moved up or down at the at the end of the year, which would be a year-end rating. Good to know, but it’s not going to happen anyway.Carolyn: 9:26

But I just, you know, just in case. Just in case, Erin. Not something we have to worry about.Erin: 9:32

Okay, so Jenifer, you are not only on grievance committees and in on all types of committees from local to national. I’m sure you’ve had some crazy uh situations on the court, off the court, in the actual court of law. Can you give us something? Probably the craziest or funniest situations I can’t talk about.Jenifer: 9:54

Perhaps it would uh maybe give up the identity of the folks. But yeah, I think that from the standpoint of what we may consider normal now, unfortunately, might seem crazy to some, and that is we’re seeing uh an increasing number of players create second USTA accounts uh to get a different rating. And you know, not only is it a new regulation that a player can only have one USTA account, but it’s also for the for the last several years, in fact, been a violation of the rules to to create it a second account just for the purposes of getting a different rating, which we’ve seen a f a fair amount of times.Carolyn: 10:35

I just don’t understand why people would do multiple accounts and try to get different ratings. That just seems so crazy to me.Jenifer: 10:43

Yeah, I think yeah, I I I some of it’s a head scratcher. I think, you know, so sometimes players simply don’t understand that that you can’t stay out for a while and come back at a lower level and they just can’t understand why, for example, that why they’re put back at the level that they left. And and the reason is just generally speaking, that self-rate is the rating that’s assigned at that point. And if you’re really doing it correctly, you need to allow for improvement. So if I’m a new player, or if I’m a player coming back to tennis and I was a 4.0 five years ago, and I come back, the general player playing once or twice a week or three times a week is going to get back to that level at which they left. Uh, and so that’s the assumption. And I think that many players don’t agree or maybe not can wrap their brain around that. And I think it that’s the thing that most people have to remember that certainly when we’ve taken off, we don’t come back at full strength that day. But as we say, if we knock the rust off, we’re going to come back and eventually get to the level that we left.Erin: 11:53

Okay, now I have a real question, like a good question. So I don’t know if people are cheating the system or what is happening, but um, for instance, there are sometimes teams, and maybe people are just gobbling up all a bunch of self-rates, but sometimes there are teams literally made up of all self-rates except for maybe a few. So are those people that are, I know we don’t know if they’re telling the truth or not, but are they really just coming into USTA? Or have they come back and they’re like they don’t come back as a self-rate, right? They if they come back in after several years, they’re still at the level that they were at when they left. But how are these teams, like we’ll call them super teams, having so many self-rates? Like, we know there was a team at Nationals this year that was like 12 self-rates and two computer-rated people.Jenifer: 12:44

So if you’re sitting out for several years and you’ve had a computer rating, you would come back as a self-rate because the computer ratings are only valid for two or three years, depending. And and so what would happen is you would complete that self-rate questionnaire and you would get the last rating that you left, or or uh maybe even a higher rating depending on how you answered that self-rate questionnaire. But you would show up as a self-rate. Uh, and there are a variety of reasons. Certainly, beginning teams, it’s not uncommon to see 2.5 or 3.0 teams completely with complete rosters of self-rates. Uh, and it’s not always even uncommon at higher levels. For example, you might have a 4.0 or 4.5 team full of 20-somethings who just came out of high school. So we’re wanting to get them into league tennis. And so I think there’s a misconception by many league players that if there’s a team full of self-rates, then there’s something nefarious going on. We want to see new players come into league tennis, and there may be, there may be an entire group of friends who are starting tennis together or starting league tennis together who have had quite a bit of tennis experience. So it may not be limited to 2.5 or 3.0 teams. It could very well be 4.0 or 4.5. So I think it’s an assumption that I think it’s it’s reasonable or to think maybe that there might be something uh amiss, but but sometimes it’s simply they’re they’re new to tennis or new to league tennis.Erin: 14:07

That’s actually a really good point because when we see self-rates, we think I mean a group of self-rates, we think sandbaggers. So that is a really good um way of ex explaining it, why that happens.Carolyn: 14:20

And Jenifer, can you also tell us your most memorable moment on the court?Jenifer: 14:23

Well, I mean, it may be boring to folks who have gone to national championships, but I started league tennis at a late age, and and my primary reason was that I played basketball and wanted some sort of team experience, and it was all about team for me. So by far, my most memorable experience was my first state championship. And and it was far more memorable, far, far more exciting for me than a tournament. The reason why I played league tennis, the reason why I think league tennis is the best recreational sport out there is the team concept.Carolyn: 14:54

I agree, and that’s how I met Erin. Exactly. Thanks to Jenifer for coming on the podcast. We have another episode with Jenifer where we discuss different urban legends we have heard. Also, Jenifer mentioned that some of the questions and answers contained in this episode are based on the southern section perspective, so that the processes and some regulations in other sections may be different in some instances. We hope you check out our website, which is secondservodcast.com. Thanks so much for listening and hope to see you on the court soon.

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The post Ep. 313: Understanding USTA Self-Rating And DQs appeared first on Second Serve Tennis Podcast.

Here’s a Complete Transcript of Our Conversation with Gin

Carolyn: 0:07

Hi, this is Carolyn, and I’m here with Erin. And Gin is back on the podcast. She started out as a 3-5. She was so good. She got bumped to a 5-0. And because of Gin, I’ve changed my mind on what you should do in a situation. And the situation is a ball rolls in the court between your first and second serve. Erin and I have talked about this numerous times on the podcast. And we have always said you give a first serve if this happens. That just, you know, it’s the right thing to do. It makes everything easier. And Gin, I think what were you yelling at the podcast when you listened to us discuss this?Gin: 0:48

Or you were so upset by what Yeah, I I yes, I don’t like it. I don’t like, I don’t like there’s too much gray area to this.Erin: 0:55

And Carolyn doesn’t like gray area. And I think that’s why we said just make it a first serve. Like make it a rule, it’s just a first serve. But so but Gin convinced us otherwise and well convinced Carolyn. And I wanna, I wanna hear the arguments.Carolyn: 1:07

Yeah, Gin. So t tell us, Gin, why you think it should be a second serve. Yes.Gin: 1:11

Well, I think I think that there’s a lot of gray area went with it. And I think that there is games gamesmanship that people just naturally do. I think if you have a really strong server, then you’re giving them a huge advantage to give them another first serve, you know. And I think people do watch for this and I think they take advantage of it. And I mean, I have seen people hit a first serve in the net and then, you know, maybe somehow the ball rolls over on the next court and they kind of look at the other court like, aren’t you gonna toss it back? Like waiting and looking for that, looking for that extra serve. And, you know, I think I think maybe where I got you, Carolyn, was talking about basketball. You know, to me, you and I both play basketball. It’s sort of like getting a first free throw again. Like if something happens in the game like that’s chaos, and you’re like, well, yeah, this guy, you know, the flow of his two free throws got disturbed. So give him a first free throw again. I’m like, what? No, no, no, no, no. He missed the first free throw. Same thing to me here. You know, the first serve was missed. You know, it’s over, it’s gone. And and I just think I think there’s that the potential for gamesmanship. There is the potential for an extra unfair advantage for big servers. And and I just think it’s so gray because I think there’s different what what bothers one person doesn’t bother the next. You know, then there’s this whole like, well, she gave it to me, now I’ve got to give it to her. And then it just becomes like literally like the smallest, you know, someone sneezes and they look at you like, well, and it just it just I just think it’s too gray.Erin: 2:40

Well, and I think the rule, even though it’s a gray area, I think it’s the opponent’s discretion, but everyone has their own opinion on how much is too long or whatever. And I think that’s the prop problem. It’s like sometimes you’re like, well, it took a long time to fetch the ball and to give it back, or sometimes it could be like thrown over really quickly. But if the rule is like you always get a first serve, then it’s like, yeah, what Jin was saying is like, well, then there could be no time between, and then you just keep get to keep hitting a first serve all you want, you know, for as many times as it happens.Carolyn: 3:08

So you know, I didn’t care what the rule was, I just wanted it consistent. And so I would say now after listening to Gin, you only get a second serve. Like, no matter what, no matter how long the time frame is, only second serves because then at least it’s consistent match to match. Okay, but I think the reason people have trouble with is because the rule is confusing and it’s not clear. So this is um page 41 of the code number 30. Delays during service. When the server’s second service motion is interrupted by a ball coming onto the court, the server is entitled to two serves. So that’s when somebody’s actually serving, the ball’s going, it’s elect. You know, you’re starting the point over. Now they go. And that’s clear. We’re good with that. Yeah, everybody’s good with that. When there’s a delay between the first and second serves, okay, here it is. It says the server gets one serve if the server was the cause of the delay. The server gets two serves if the delay was caused by the receiver or if there was outside interference. And then underneath that, it says the time it takes to clear a ball that comes onto the court between the first and second serves is not considered sufficient time to warrant the server receiving two serves unless this time is so prolonged as to constitute an interruption. The receiver is the judge of whether the delay is sufficiently prolonged to justify giving the server two serves. They need to take all that out.Erin: 4:36

That’s that, yeah. I was like, hold on. Like I couldn’t even process it. Oh, sorry. Was I reading it too fast? No, no, no, no, you weren’t. No, I was processing. Yeah, but I’m gonna say something. I’m gonna read, like, say back what I think I heard of one, only one portion of it because that was way too long. So if I cause, if I’m the server and I’m in my if I’m in my second serve motion and something happens, I just get that’s a let. I just get another second serve. Yeah, like after you’ve served it. Yes. But if I serve, if I’m the set server and I’m serving a second serve, but I’ve caused my own delay, yeah. Like what? Like the ball falls out of my hands?Carolyn: 5:08

Yeah, or maybe I need to my I need to change my sunglasses between my first and second.Erin: 5:12

I’m the cause. You’re the cause. Yeah. I’m the problem. It’s me.Carolyn: 5:15

Yeah, if not, you could always get first serves, right? I’d be like, oh, I gotta do my sunglasses first serves. Oh, I gotta get it. Oh, I see.Gin: 5:21

Or I think another example that would happen more often is you as the server go wait for the next court to give you a ball. Or you you are the one sort of like, well, let me get this ball. Let me, you know, you can’t, you can’t cause the delay.Erin: 5:33

It’s like not being able to cause your own hindrance. Yeah, you can’t hinder yourself. Yeah. So maybe that’s the language it needs to say. No. No. No.Carolyn: 5:40

Okay. It needs to say second serve only. Yeah.Gin: 5:43

Between there is, yeah. Nope. No. No.Erin: 5:46

Okay, go, Gin.Gin: 5:47

Yeah, well, because it’s still gray. Yeah. Even it’s still gonna because even in what Carolyn said, it’s the server to decide what is what constitutes, I can’t remember now the language, but an unusual delay or something. The receiver, whatever the word. The receiver. Right, right. But even that is still going to be what you know, what bothers one person is is is gonna be different. And then there’s gonna be all this annoyance because, well, I gave you one and now you’re not gonna give me one. Well, I wasn’t bothered and I didn’t think it was long, and it’s just, it’s just too gray. You can’t you can’t govern that. You can’t it and so again, I hate to keep using the basketball example, but like that, it’s just once it’s once that first serve is done, it’s done.Erin: 6:27

So what happens if, and maybe this is not the gray area. I guess I guess this isn’t the gray area because it’s a disturbance from another court. But what if, you know how many times we play matches and we serve a first serve and then we’re getting ready to sec to serve a second serve, but our first serve went to the court right next right next to us, right? And those people just pick up the ball and not even seeing where we are. Oftentimes what I do is I don’t even look at them as a receiver or as a server. I’m like, I don’t want that ball, don’t throw me that ball. It’s on your court, I’ll get it later. You know, but sometimes people just do it anyway. So then is that does that here’s the rule.Gin: 6:58

This is what our new rule would be. If you have started your second serve motion, you would be entitled to a first serve. Yep, because then the point had started. And that’s what Carolyn said. That’s the rule. So you so if you had been in your second serve motion and then they toss the ball onto your court, you have to stop the point. Yeah. And so then it would be the whole point would start over. But that would be a less.Carolyn: 7:17

What if they that’s different?Gin: 7:18

That’s different than the delay between the first and second. Exactly. But if they toss it on when you can still stop and get it, you just got to deal with that.Erin: 7:27

Yes, you know, because I’m not actually in a service motion.Gin: 7:29

You did I mean it’s someone is looking. And I’ll tell you what I would do is I would say, Hey, thanks. Next time, please don’t toss the ball on. You know, if I’m it look like I’m not ready because I I would like to serve my next ball. If you don’t mind, just put it back at the back fence. You know, I I would say something nicely like that. But yeah, that would clear up the convention, right?Erin: 7:48

Yeah, but you know how many times people do that, and it’s so annoying. Because oftentimes, like if I’m the receiver and it’s you know, it’s hit towards me, right? Because I’m receiving the ball, and then the ball goes to the court next to me, I’m still in my ready position, ready for them to serve their second serve, not for me to look over at the court, get the ball back, put it in my pocket, and then be like, all right, go get your set, you know, or or knowing that they’re gonna, and I also try to not disturb their routine, right? So I’m literally standing in ready position to receive, and then someone on the court next to me is like hucking a ball back over, you know, our way.Gin: 8:21

So well, I think that needs to be, you know, part of the new um, you know, the Carolyn general way around this is that the the tennis etiquette is, you know, if a ball comes onto your court from the next court over, you know, you need to just put it look, you can look over there. And if no one is looking at you like, yeah, yeah, toss it to me, then just walk back to, you know, either near the bench where it can be, you know, near the bench, wherever it’s gonna be where they can get it, uh back at the fence, whatever it is, that they can retrieve it, it’s now their business, they can get it when they’re ready. And that’s that’s now tennis etiquette is you don’t, you know, you don’t you’d never toss throw a ball at them when they’re not ready and they don’t look like they want it. Yeah.Carolyn: 8:58

Um, I think that’s but I think people do need to be taught that because let me tell you, I’ve done that a number of times where the boss comes to me and then I’m like, hey, but I look at people first. I don’t toss it without looking, but sometimes I do toss it to them and then I can see the awkward situation happen of whether there’s a first serve or not. Well, and do you know why?Gin: 9:18

Do you know why this is? Is because the servers are like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. The servers like, yeah, and the returners are like, no, no, no, no, don’t toss it. So that’s the problem. Yeah. And that’s what I’m talking about. About the like, so it’s almost kind of like your club, you better be watching. Is my club serving or is my club receiving? And so it’s just, it’s this like whole, I mean, seriously, I think people do that, you know.Erin: 9:39

Like, I’m gonna book a court for my two really good friends, four of my really good friends next to a court that I have to win, right? And then I’m gonna say, when it looks like I need a first serve, you’re gonna throw a ball in there. Yeah, and I’m gonna go, hey, hey.Gin: 9:51

Yeah, or if my team is serving, I’m always, oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to toss, toss you, you know. But if my team’s receiving, oh, that’s like a brick, you know, that’s like a steel chair. You’re not getting things over here.Erin: 10:00

You’re not getting that ball back. No, don’t make eye contact with me, don’t look at me.Carolyn: 10:05

But they need to change friend at court. Friend at court needs to just say if there’s a delay between the first and second serve, sorry, you get one serve. It doesn’t matter whether the receiver’s the cause of the delay, it doesn’t matter anything because then there’s too much gray area. It needs to be one serve no matter what.Erin: 10:22

Okay, I have a hand on the case. Okay, why is that? Carolyn can, actually, one of our friends. The delay was so long, they had a conversation with a court next to them.Carolyn: 10:31

This rule, the way it’s written, yes, still well, well, it says the server, the way it’s written is the server gets two serves if the delay was caused by the receiver or if there was outside interference. So to me, this is why when we first started, I was like, the way the rule’s written to me is a ball rolling into the court is outside interference. Like you didn’t cause that ball to roll into the court, you should get a first serve. So that’s the reason why I’ve always been like, even though they have that little paragraph saying, hey, the time it takes for a ball to roll in and go out is not sufficient to give a first serve. I mean, it’s very confusing the way it’s written versus it just needs to say you’re not entitled to flow between your first and second serve. No matter what happens, you only get a second serve.Gin: 11:22

Because I mean, it’s like, where is the line? Yeah. Are you entitled to flow between 15 love and 15 all? You know, are you entitled to flow in a game? Are you entitled to No? You know, we’re never entitled to a flow. You know, like if there’s a bother between fit, you know, a point, do you should you go back to the beginning of that game? No. You know, it it’s it’s I don’t like the way that point happened. It’s happened. It it someone threw the ball up, tried to hit it over the net, and they did not succeed to get it in the box. It happened. Like it is over.Erin: 11:54

So maybe that’s the language. The language is entitled to.Carolyn: 11:57

Yeah, or maybe you’re never entitled to uh if there’s a delay, no matter what happens, there’s a rainstorm, somebody comes over and talks to you. It doesn’t matter. It just to make it easy. Now, do I think people can get first serves? I’ve always given first serves. No matter what happens, if somebody coughs, I’ll give a first serve. Um no, you will not. I do. I’m like, oh, did anything bother you? Did you sneeze? Did anything bother you? And to be honest, at my level, I haven’t played too many people that are acing me constantly so that it’s really that big of a deal. It may be more of a big deal for Gin, since she plays at the 5-0 level or playing mixed, that may be, or men’s even, but like I’m not getting aced constantly. So I’ve always kind of been like first serve. And it’s so hard. I mean, I we were talking about this right before we started. Gin, what would what do you do if somebody said gives you a first serve when a ball rolls in?Gin: 12:53

Yeah. Um, in in matches, you know, I sometimes will be like, okay, but in friendlies, I will say, no, no, no, no, no, you know, that’s good. And then I typically will not even give myself the first serve, even if they say it and it seems like it’s gonna be first serve. I’ll just hit a what is considered to me a second safe serve. Um, just because I kind of I don’t know, I just I don’t like the whole thing. And so I kind of almost don’t accept the first serve. Right.Erin: 13:15

She now she sticks by her own what she wants the world to be.Gin: 13:18

I’m also not acing people, Carolyn. So I guess you know, if I was that is probably when I have become the most passionate about this and when I’ve gotten the most irritated, is is playing Five O mixed. I mean, that’s that’s a different thing when you face a Five O guy serve. Um there are yeah, there are gonna be some each game that I don’t get back. And that’s sub you know, that’s substantial if you’re um facing a second serve that you have a much better chance to get back. And so yeah. So have you faced this situation in mix that you can think of?Erin: 13:49

Where like and you just didn’t give a second serve. You’re like, nope.Gin: 13:52

Did they ask for first? Did they ask? Men and men aren’t gonna ask for uh uh no, uh they don’t ask, but they will sort of look like, are you gonna give me one? And I’d I’m I’m not giving it. And the answer is no, Gin’s like shaking her head. You’re like no no. I have not faced like a huge disturbance. I probably would have given one if there was truly like a big something, but like I I am I’m not given one for like a bro ball rolling over or having to retrieve a, you know, I’m not, I’m not, I feel like that is a huge unfair advantage.Carolyn: 14:21

But I also think it’s your expectation. So that’s my issue with it, is that I don’t care, even to this, like I think it’s clearer if you only get a second serve. I wouldn’t care. I I see Gin’s point, but the problem I’ve always had is like it changed match to match. Like some opponents always gave first serves, some opponents wouldn’t. And so it’s just always this like awkward moment of is she gonna give it? Is she not? Was that long enough? And we all kind of stare at each other. And then if they’ve given it to me, I can never then be like, oh, second serve for you.Erin: 14:57

Yeah, that’s what I was gonna say. That’s when it does get awkward because you’re like, really? I gave you one when there wasn’t even that long of a delay, and now you’re being now, now all of a sudden I don’t like you because you’re not giving me the sample. Or I’m a jerk. I’m a jerk, and then there’s a whole different mentality going on in my game, right? Because now I’m like, wow, I was really nice to that girl and she didn’t give me a first service, or you know, whatever.Carolyn: 15:19

So you guys did the cutest video. It was um this or that, and this was at eight five states. Eight five. So these are four.Erin: 15:30

And our five-o.Carolyn: 15:30

Oh, and now oh, five. Oh, and she’s a five. Oh, that’s right. Because I played with a three-five. Well, she played with a three five.Erin: 15:35

Oh, so eight, five, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so we had a superstar three five.Carolyn: 15:39

There’s five. There’s a five-o lady and a three five. And they said if a ball rolls in between the first and second, do you give a first serve or not? And it was completely equal, right?Erin: 15:50

Split even, split split on, I think, of us, yeah, yeah. I think if we had had a debate about it, we could have convinced people one way or the other. But yeah, I mean, just I think that’s what happens, right? It’s 50% of the people on the court are gonna do it, and 50% aren’t gonna do it.Gin: 16:03

And I think in fairness, probably some of those of us who went to know would sometimes reluctantly do it. But it’s more we don’t like the rule. We don’t like this whole, you know, I think it’s more about like nobody knows when to, when not to. So it’s more that we’re annoyed by it, I think. Uh probably. We’re gonna redo that, this or that, and ask that question.Erin: 16:21

Yes. How annoyed are you by these rules?Carolyn: 16:23

Or change this rule. If you change the rule, I think everybody’d be fine with it. Um well, maybe not. Nobody, not ever. Well, everybody’s gonna be happy. I feel like we’re gonna get a lot of comments of well, they took a really long time or the receiver caused the delay. But I kind of feel like you just have to deal with that.Gin: 16:40

Mechanically, let’s talk about mechanically. Your your second serve is its own motion. You know, it is not, you are not, you know, doing your first serve and then keeping your racket going and going into your second serve. You know, it is its own separate, you reset, you do your second serve. I mean, we need to be ready to do a second serve without I don’t I don’t understand it being seen as so can so connected. See, I thought we were entitled to flow.Carolyn: 17:05

I mean, there’s nowhere in the rules that says that you um are, but I’ve always at 253035, I kind of have always felt like, oh, you don’t want to take a big break between their first and second. Let’s let them go. I kind of felt like you were entitled to flow. And Rebel Good told me he does the Court of Appeals column for um Tennis Magazine, or he did. And he was like, you’re not entitled to flow. So that kind of changed my mind on that.Erin: 17:32

Do you think that you think that that you used to think that way, that you’re you’re entitled to flow because of watching pros? Because ours are not officiated matches, but what we watch on TV are officiated matches and they are kind of entitled to flow. In fact, they have like serve clocks and they have, you know, all that stuff. Do you think that you just thought that because you watched tennis or because you just thought it was a courtesy, like that was just part of it? I thought it was just part of it.Carolyn: 17:57

Maybe a little bit of both, Erin. I think so.Erin: 17:59

Yeah. You think it was just such a like nicer.Carolyn: 18:02

Yeah, at 2-5, we always did it. At 2-5 at 3-0.Gin: 18:06

I well, I think at 2-5 you’re just so glad you get another serve. And everybody’s like, yes, every let’s let’s all take, you know, let’s all serve something. Yeah, yeah. I don’t I just think I think that is a little bit of the mentality, but it becomes very different when it’s um it’s changing the outcome with all these first serves.Carolyn: 18:23

I have a question. I’ve never played 5-0 tennis. Jim, what have you found at 5-0? Have do people give first serves? Do they not? Not as much.Gin: 18:31

They’re not as they’re not as bothered by a ball rolling on uh over and it’s less. I mean, that it will happen occasionally, but I find the threshold for like what’s considered substantially bothersome or whatever the language is in the thing is is is much lower at the lower levels. You know, like you said, a sneeze might trigger a first serve. Um, whereas at 5-0, it’s gotta be much bigger deal. You know, even a even a ball rolling over and somebody quickly hitting it back over, you know, we’re not giving it typically.Carolyn: 19:00

Okay, how about you, Erin? Have you changed your mind? Are you gonna give Yeah?Erin: 19:04

No, I’m I’m actually with you guys. I I I do like rules too. I like it to just be one way or the other.Carolyn: 19:10

Yeah, but I think the rule should change because I think in a match I still will be like first serve, even though I agree which just because of the way the rule’s written right now, or if they give it to me first, but I do agree it should be second only. I just think the rule needs to change.Erin: 19:26

It’s funny, and we’ve changed over time, and that was thanks to Gin. Thanks, Gin.Gin: 19:30

I think that’s why y’all’s podcast is titled Second Serve is like, you know, like we knew all along, some deep down somewhere y’all knew that like we were gonna do this episode. We should only give second serves. Only second serves, right? Y’all aren’t called first serves.Carolyn: 19:45

Thanks again to Gin for coming on the podcast. Please let us know if you agree with Gin or if you’ve had any awkward or strange situations happen when deciding whether to give a first serve or second serve. We hope you check out our website, which Second surveycast.com. Thanks so much for listening and hope to see you on the court soon.

Below are some of our most popular episodes with Gin

Gin’s Journey from 3.5 to 5.0 – Part 1

Gin’s Journey from 3.5 to 5.0 – Part 2

The post Ep. 312: First or Second Serve? appeared first on Second Serve Tennis Podcast.

Carolyn came up with a list of things that are annoying to her when playing. She asked Dave and Tom if they annoy them as well. Here’s her list:

1. Hitting winners during warm-ups

Annoying! We all agreed hitting winners during warm-ups is annoying but Tom thinks “baby tennis” is even more annoying. He would rather see someone hit their best shot (a winner) then play baby tennis. He thinks he’ll never see those types of shots in a match. Tom said that when an opponents hit drop shots during warm-ups that that annoys him though.

2. Throwing a racquet

Carolyn and Erin think when women throw their racquets in tennis matches it’s not only an annoying situation on the court but also awkward. In men’s matches, however, it’s commonplace. Tom and Dave said it doesn’t bother them at all. Tom said he’s seen a few guys destroy their racquets out of frustration which he finds silly. Someone who breaks their tennis racquet just wasted several hundred dollars.

3. Yelling at oneself out of frustration

Carolyn has played many singles and had opponents yell at themselves out of frustration. She finds it awkward because sometimes she can’t tell if they are yelling at themselves or trying to say something to her. Carolyn played a woman (we’ll say her name is Sarah) and she kept calling herself stupid. Now, when we talk about Sarah, we call her “Stupid Sarah.”

4. Throwing the balls over to the other side of the court vs. handing them over

We all agreed that throwing the balls to the other side of the court without handing them to an opponent is annoying. But… things have changed in the age of the pandemic. Tom and Erin said they used to think it was rude for players to leave the tennis balls on the ground for opponents to pick up when changing sides. Now thing think it’s better. If balls are left on the ground, there’s no physical contact with your opponents. The thing we all agreed was, however, was when an opponent throws the balls over to your side of the court when you’re not looking.

5. When an opponent goes to retrieve a ball slowly and you feel like it’s strategy

This definitely falls under the category “annoying situations on the court”! Sometimes people are slow by nature but often they are slow to retrieve a ball as a strategy to delay a game or match. This is frustrating! Tom thinks if you have two balls to play with, don’t take the time to get the third ball if it slows the game down.

6. Taking too long to serve

While Carolyn is annoyed at people that take too long to serve, Dave is more annoyed at someone that serves fast. All tennis players have their serving routine but being way too fast or way too slow is probably annoying to most rec tennis players.

7. Cheering when someone gets hit with a tennis ball. A new low!

Carolyn has been hit with a ball in a match and could hear people on the sidelines cheering for the team that won the point because she got hit. That’s a new low in adult recreational tennis. Most players apologize when they hit someone but occasionally there’s a match where someone doesn’t understand good manners in adult recreational tennis.

Thank you for listening to “Annoying Situations on the Tennis Court – Part Two”. We talked about several other annoying things, but you’ll have to listen to the whole episode to hear them! We hope you enjoy it and will send us things that annoy you as well. We’re sure we could record endless episodes about this topic!

Some situations could be avoided if more tennis players understand the rules. Some weird things — not necessarily annoying — that happen on the court can be found in Rebel Good’s column called “Stump the Ump“. We think you’ll enjoy reading it!

Tom and Dave have joined us for several episodes. If you’d like to hear more from them, click here:

• Annoying Situations on the Court – Part One
• How To Choose A Tennis Partner
• Bad Weather and Short Sets at States
• Bad Weather and Short Sets at States – Part Two

The post Ep. 311: Annoying Situations on the Court – Part Two appeared first on Second Serve Tennis Podcast.

Tom and Dave are with us to discuss what they find annoying. We have figured out quickly by interviewing so many people on the podcast that what is considered annoying in women’s tennis matches may not be when playing men’s tennis.

The guys have played tennis together as doubles partners for several years. They have been to playoffs and various NC state tournaments many times. Tom and Dave have had their fair share of annoying situations on the court. They agreed that sometimes their opponents can be annoying but often times their partner can too!

Tom and Dave said most times, men can play a tennis match and then enjoy a beer afterwards together, Women can’t seem to do that. We hold grudges against people that we find annoying!

Have you ever had someone tell you their life story while playing tennis?

We agreed that a lot of players like to talk about their lives but Tom and Carolyn mostly get annoyed when this happens. They don’t want to hear about someone’s kids or grandkids while they are playing. They don’t mind talking after a match and getting to know someone but find it distracting and annoying when it’s done during a match. A lot of recreational tennis players do this — especially in women’s tennis. Erin never really minds someone talking to her during matches unless she feels like it’s a strategy.

Tennis Players Are Mostly Genuine

The four of us agree that most tennis players are genuine people and don’t mean to be annoying. We all feel like nice people far outweigh the annoying ones. But… since all recreational tennis players come across annoying opponents sometimes, we have a part two to this episode coming up next week. There are endless stores that can be told about annoying situations on a tennis court so there are lots of things to discuss

Tom and Dave have joined us for several episodes. If you’d like to hear more from them, click here:

• How To Choose A Tennis Partner
• Bad Weather and Short Sets at States
• Bad Weather and Short Sets at States – Part Two

If you’d like to read about adult recreational tennis rules found in Friend at Court, click here.

The post Ep. 310: Annoying Situations on the Court – Part One appeared first on Second Serve Tennis Podcast.