tennis, life and a few things in between

Our 6th match was played yesterday at NTC on clay. Crisis, Crisis, and more Crisis. The first crisis was, I’m having mid life crisis! The second crisis: I forgot to send out the lineup .. the third crisis was forgot to bring balls. It’s totally my fault: the opposing team even mentioned it in the confirmation email – thank you Doug, it’s really nice for you to do so. The third doubles players from both side (two couples: not sure about the opponents but they have the same last name .. ) each offered me a can of balls: thank you all! And Kai went to the Pro shop to get the third can. I’m brain dead and contracting Alzheimer’s disease…

Ricky and I played the second string. We were pretty tight in the first four games, everyone held own serve. Then I didn’t know what happened but Ricky took the set at 2.
The second set began with my partner served first again. Some how we were leading 4:1.
The guy served and held.
4:2.
Irene served and lost
4:3.
The lady served and held
4:4.
Holy smoke.
Then everyone held his/her own, tie break followed. I tried hard to focus and to pull myself together.
Guess we were less nervous or the Lord was moved by my sincerity, we won the tie break 7:4. Phew.

As soon as we shocked hands at the net, our first doubles team who had finished before us on court 3, said to us,

“打毛波 .. they cheat.”

My teammates referred to a point we hit to the corner of the ad court. The man was at the baseline. (Our first doubles mates were at their baseline too and saw the shot was well inside of the court.) He hesitated. The lady was near the net and she went to baseline. They had a discussion about it.
Then our opponents rendered their verdict:
It was out.
The guy even came to the net to demonstrated how far out it was and where it landed.
I remembered joking to Ricky,
“Gee .. they to have a meeting to decide a shot .. ” Some elaborated operation.

I said nothing, what’s the point?

1. It’s their call – no need to argue. Like I said, so far I haven’t encounter anyone intentional cheat on line calls.
2. The rule said IF the player is unsure of a shot, then the opponent gets the point – we should been have awarded the point but we didn’t.

I wasn’t going to enforce the rule because I don’t like confrontation. Both Ricky and I noticed our first point was ended with a shot that sailed long. The guy took it behind the baseline without letting it to bounce. We took it as 0:15. But really, we could have it as 15:0. I personally experienced this before, when I played elsewhere (for the yellow glove lady). I stopped a very long shot without letting it bounce. It was a tight singles match and my opponent and her teammates jumped on me ..

There are rules and there are people.. ..

..

This afternoon Dan and I lost to Irene and her honey 0:4! 4 bagels, 4 eggs at NTC Court 5 where I lost my playoffs match on Saturday. I was so tired, I hardly could move by third set. I found myself wondering off all the time. Kai said to me on Saturday
“Please, we have a match to play .. ” when he saw me watching the matches on both sides.
Today, Wah finally had it, said ..
“Have you finished watching?” ..

Irene and Honey are on a roll, they just called for a match tomorrow at 11am. Sigh. I resign. I surrender. I give up.