Throwback Thursday: Originally posted in 2017, but nothing has changed — other than the names and deformed style of my current set of fellow tennis players. Tony and Scott have been replaced by two guys named Bob and one Deepak.
I love playing tennis, but I only “tolerate” watching it. I’d love to be a fan if I could scream obscenities, dress up like an idiot and bring in a band and cheerleaders. Fucking cheerleaders.
Tennis matches should be like college basketball games with heckling, weird signs and the kind of deeply personal trash talk that can leave players mentally scarred for life. (Shaq said he could never make free-throws because of the fan bullying he got at LSU — there was a show named “I hate Christian Laettner“.)
But nooooo… You go to a tennis match and they shush you like nuns in a library. Quiet Please, the-highly-privileged-spoiled-brat-from-the-wealthy-family-that-paid-$250k-for-five-years-at-the-“elite academy in Spain” is about to serve… we don’t want to “disturb” her.
Meanwhile, the 18-year-old kid from Compton is standing at the free throw line with the game, the championship and his future career on the line. Everyone screams and waves shit and holds up pictures of the giant ugly face of Bill Walton hoping he fucks it up.
This is what a tennis match should look like.
“Quiet Please” should be banned from the mouth of every umpire and player for life.
Basketball is way more fun for the fans. Mostly because we don’t give a shit about the inner lives of the gladiators we pay to perform. (Even if we have to launder the money through Adidas or Nike, it’s still the fans paying for the entertainment.)
Tennis players would get used to the noise, if it was there all the time. It only “breaks their concentration” because it’s quiet for four hours, and then at match point some asshole screams “I love you” just as she starts to serve.
If we were all yelling, the players wouldn’t even notice. They would probably start getting nervous when it’s quiet.
Sure, sure Davis Cup, you say. Nobody but the tennis nerds watch that shit, and I can never plan far enough in advance to figure out where and when Davis Cup might be held — let alone figure out tickets and talk the wife into going.
The only time I have fun “watching” tennis is at the 3rd World Racquet Club. I try to get done with my matches quick, so the beer is flowing, the music is playing, and we can talk shit like teenagers on probation.
The tennis sucks, so that makes it every easier to heckle.
Fucking Brice can’t hit a volley any harder than a jelly donut, and he’s one of the better players.
Tony never met an easy shot he couldn’t find a way to fuck up. Scott’s backhand looks like some sort of medieval torture. Larry is a grown ass man with the second serve of a toddler. I run like a dairy cow and swing like Reggie Jackson (a big whiff or it’s way over the fence).
Imagine the kind of shit we could talk if we could play this game.
I’m waiting for the night when we have only 1 court playing and 12 people heckling and someone takes a header and plants their face in the fence. It will be all fun and games till we have to call the ambulance.
But it beats the shit out of being forced to be quiet because “people are playing tennis.” I say Fuck Quiet Tennis — it’s not like that pussy sport golf, or a goddamn chess match.
Let’s make some noise, talk some shit and see if we can make grown men cry.
