Would you like mashed tennis with that, or squash?
April 22nd 2009 02:28
I really love playing tennis – most of the time. Over the past few days I have had the joy of playing a doubles match with my brother, a beginner, and some of his friends. It sounds like a pleasant experience, right? Wrong – well, not for me anyway. The experience has led me to ask the question, what is good tennis etiquette? Conversely, what is poor etiquette and what constitutes poor sportsmanship? (Or, do I just have no sense of humour?)
As a competition player of many years, I have experienced the full spectrum of temperaments, tennis ability, sportsmanship, wins and losses, along with all the psychological drama tennis has to offer. (and some of my greatest battles have been with myself.) I believe I know my way around a tennis court and tennis behaviour, if one can credit oneself with such things. What I saw yesterday resembled a kindergarten playground. Picture a reasonable player and a novice (learning the basics and trying to put that into practice) on one side, playing against a couple of (gasp) squash players who are at best, two steps ahead of the novice, basically chopping the (flat) balls they were using at every turn, avoiding hitting to the reasonable player, then playing bodyline shots at the novice in order to win. After much back-slapping and high-fiving, they then laughed and celebrated their mean spirits under the banner of “humour”, all the while offering mock encouragement to the novice. I don’t have anything against squash players, except that they delude themselves into thinking they can play tennis, but that doesn’t matter. BUT, what of the treatment of the novice – the only way to improve on a tennis court is to play with players who are better than you are, and to use something other than your (limp) wrists in your shots to do it – ever heard of that, squash boys? Here’s a newsflash for you – playing bodyline tennis doesn’t take much brain power or skill, just a healthy lack of sportsmanship and faith in your own ability to play a decent shot. Patronising beginners by having a laugh at their expense is not only infantile, it’s simply poor etiquette, no matter what you’re doing.
The positive thing to do here is, not laugh at the fact that a rather uncoordinated adult has decided to have some tennis coaching, rather than playing hacky, wristy rubbish, but to encourage - why not try hitting the ball to a place where the person can actually practise some shots, and consolidate what the coach is trying to teach him? Perhaps you might even get a bit of a workout from it if more than one shot comes back, since that’s the general purpose of playing sports anyway, and, if you hit enough balls yourself, you might even, heaven forbid, turn into a TENNIS player!
Tennis at club level at least, is about hitting with anyone and everyone – if a beginner approaches an A grade player for a hit, then it’s good form to hit – it may not be the most fun for the A grader, but it’s certainly going to help the tennis of the beginner, and that’s the important thing. (even if it means retrieving a hundred balls from over the fence, or feeling as if you’re walking around the court rather than dazzling everyone with great play.)
In the end though, the joke was probably most on me in this match – the player of the highest standard and most experience played only as well as her opponents – even my brother had a laugh at his own expense, although I just thought that was his ridiculously good nature. Maybe I need to return to earth and just remember tennis is for fun, not sheep stations!
As a competition player of many years, I have experienced the full spectrum of temperaments, tennis ability, sportsmanship, wins and losses, along with all the psychological drama tennis has to offer. (and some of my greatest battles have been with myself.) I believe I know my way around a tennis court and tennis behaviour, if one can credit oneself with such things. What I saw yesterday resembled a kindergarten playground. Picture a reasonable player and a novice (learning the basics and trying to put that into practice) on one side, playing against a couple of (gasp) squash players who are at best, two steps ahead of the novice, basically chopping the (flat) balls they were using at every turn, avoiding hitting to the reasonable player, then playing bodyline shots at the novice in order to win. After much back-slapping and high-fiving, they then laughed and celebrated their mean spirits under the banner of “humour”, all the while offering mock encouragement to the novice. I don’t have anything against squash players, except that they delude themselves into thinking they can play tennis, but that doesn’t matter. BUT, what of the treatment of the novice – the only way to improve on a tennis court is to play with players who are better than you are, and to use something other than your (limp) wrists in your shots to do it – ever heard of that, squash boys? Here’s a newsflash for you – playing bodyline tennis doesn’t take much brain power or skill, just a healthy lack of sportsmanship and faith in your own ability to play a decent shot. Patronising beginners by having a laugh at their expense is not only infantile, it’s simply poor etiquette, no matter what you’re doing.
The positive thing to do here is, not laugh at the fact that a rather uncoordinated adult has decided to have some tennis coaching, rather than playing hacky, wristy rubbish, but to encourage - why not try hitting the ball to a place where the person can actually practise some shots, and consolidate what the coach is trying to teach him? Perhaps you might even get a bit of a workout from it if more than one shot comes back, since that’s the general purpose of playing sports anyway, and, if you hit enough balls yourself, you might even, heaven forbid, turn into a TENNIS player!
Tennis at club level at least, is about hitting with anyone and everyone – if a beginner approaches an A grade player for a hit, then it’s good form to hit – it may not be the most fun for the A grader, but it’s certainly going to help the tennis of the beginner, and that’s the important thing. (even if it means retrieving a hundred balls from over the fence, or feeling as if you’re walking around the court rather than dazzling everyone with great play.)
In the end though, the joke was probably most on me in this match – the player of the highest standard and most experience played only as well as her opponents – even my brother had a laugh at his own expense, although I just thought that was his ridiculously good nature. Maybe I need to return to earth and just remember tennis is for fun, not sheep stations!
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