Growing up and competing in tournaments around the world, we made a lot of friends along the way. After a long day competing on the court, the last thing a lot of us junior players wanted to do was mope around in our rooms - especially alone. So, we'd chat on MSN with a bunch of fellow tennis players if we were too shy to make connections in-person, walk around the hotel and city that the tournament was in to become familiar with our unique, albeit temporary surroundings, or just share silly stories and a laugh or two in our respective rooms. That made everything better, especially if we had lost earlier on in the day. It's so rare to always come out the winner after every tournament, week in and week out; that hardly happened. But we still felt like winners, or at least tried to convince each other that we were playing with purpose and with the idea that there's a bright future ahead of us.
Flash forward to playing on the senior circuit, and you'll see some overlap between playing USTA tournaments now versus back then. There will always be a form of gamesmanship happening, no matter what tournament you play in or who's standing across the net (well, not everyone subscribes to that behavior, naturally). But what about the good? There's so much good - I can't even begin to describe it. Here's a story that stood out from this past summer at the USTA National Grass Court Championships in the women's 30s division, held at the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills (my home club!):
It was the title match, and I was competing against a lovely woman by the name of Zeynep Altinay, a recent inductee into the Binghampton Hall of Fame for tennis. The first day we met, she had the biggest smile on her face and greeted everyone in the tournament like she knew them for years despite having just met. We faced each other on the last day of the singles tournament. Midway through the second set, my grip began to slip and eventually unraveled, almost completely. On the changeover, Zeynep looked over and noticed that I was having trouble holding on to my racket; she then offered her last overgrip to me, since it looked like I really needed it and she was content with the condition of her grip. Initially I hesitated taking her up on the offer, but then realized I would have to give up playing with my lucky racket if I wound up switching due to the grip situation. So, I accepted the grip, began playing again after that changeover with a steadier hand, and won the match. Truthfully, it's very likely that she could have made a comeback (in addition to being super sweet, she's a talented player, too) had she not given me her last grip - what an unbelievably nice gesture. I think the takeaway from that would be to pass on the notion of being kind to your opponent, especially when they're struggling like that. That has NEVER happened to me on the tennis court in a junior, pro or amateur match - until now...