With nationals behind me for now, I would have to spend the next few months fighting for points on the Eastern circuit. Fight is sometimes an appropriate word in local tournaments.
I once ended a tournament in Brooklyn by giving testimony.
My match was fairly routine, a straight set win over a nice player who asked me to play a third set just for practice after the match was over. What was happening on the next court was not routine.
I was familiar with both players. I had lost to both in the past. One was a gregarious friendly guy who I never quite trusted because he always seemed a little too friendly. Yet I had never had a problem with him. He had told me he had been a minor league hockey player who became a born-again Christian. He once tried to get a tournament match time changed because it conflicted with his Sunday morning church service.
The other guy was very frustrating to play. He stalled in between points. He was iffy on line calls. His entire game seemed to be distracting you from your game. When I played him he announced how he had his dog waiting for him locked up in his car. And it was 85 degrees. When I expressed alarm he shot back.
“I left the windows cracked.”
I was done before that match even started. Stall until your dog dies: A great match strategy.
It was impossible not to notice what was going on in “Friendly guy” vs. “The Staller.”
They were arguing about calls. The tournament director was out there to call the lines. I had spoken to her minutes earlier and she told me how this was the first event she was running. Poor woman. She told me how she was hoping things went smoothly. But she was prepared, saying she had the phone numbers of the top officials of the section because they were all together at a convention out of town.
I remember thinking how I never played a tournament where the director had to call the office for advice.
Friendly and Staller split the first two sets. The rules in age group tennis allow for a ten minute break between the second and third sets. Staller disappeared from the court. And didn’t come back for 20 minutes. Then there was the argument over who served first and on what side.
They played a little bit, and argued a little bit.
Soon Staller announced he was taking a bathroom break. And did not return. Finally Friendly said he was taking a bathroom break as well.
They did not come back. The tournament director sat there looking nervous.
Suddenly Friendly emerged back in the bubble.
“He attacked me,” Friendly said. I would never see Staller again.
This is where the story gets murky.
Some folks in the club claimed Friendly went into the bathroom and must have locked the door behind him because when they heard screams and commotion coming from inside they could not get in.
Staller claimed Friendly locked the door and attacked him. Friendly claimed the door was stuck, which was not as far-fetched as it seemed because the clubhouse did not have heat and the temperatures were in the 20s, wink, wink.
He claimed Staller bumped into him in the cramped bathroom and he punched him in self defense.
The result was unquestioned. Staller had broken glasses and a ripped shirt.
I heard both sides when the person in charge of discipline called me for my testimony of what I saw and did not see.
They were both defaulted in the tournament. And their potential opponent got a default into the finals. They were both suspended.
The reaction of players who knew something about the participants involved was pretty much unanimous.
“He shouldn’t have hit him,’’ they said. “But I am glad he did.”
I had my own close call.
It started with a phone call from a friend and regular practice partner.
“Ray, you are not going to believe what happened to me. It is the craziest thing I have seen at a tournament.”
To protect the guilty, I will call him Ken Rosewall.
He told the story of playing in an unsanctioned local tournament. He was winning the match easily and in the second set his opponent said he was quick serving him. Rosewall said it was supposed to be server’s pace and if there was a problem they should get the referee.
The referee agreed with Rosewall.
But at a changeover, his opponent grabbed the balls, ran to the service line and served while Rosewall was still on his chair. He then said it was the same thing Rosewall was doing to him. The referee defaulted him.
He went berserk. He would not stop going after the tournament director and my friend. Cops were called. Days later, Rosewall said he heard Berserker went to the tournament director’s house and a restraining order was filed.
A month later I was playing in the semifinal of a local tournament against a guy I had never heard of.
I didn’t have any problems with his calls, but he was playing very slow. He did something I had never seen on a court before. He would serve with one ball and if he missed his first serve he would walk back to the fence to pick up another ball for his second serve. He would towel off at the back fence where he kept the other ball, and then hit his second serve.
Well, we are supposed to play at server’s pace…
I looked over to the tournament director. He wasn’t there. He had to leave and his girlfriend was handling the desk.
I decided to stay calm. My opponent didn’t have any weapons, and just ran down everything. That is my style and I was confident I could outlast him. He seemed to be the brooding sort, not talking before the match, not looking me in the eye.
But as I started winning he finally blew. Screaming, yelling, hitting the balls into the fence. After every point. Some of the worst behavior I had ever seen. I kept calm. He was self-destructing. But it was uncomfortable and scary. He was directing his anger at me. “You have nothing,” he was screaming at me. And now he was looking at me straight in the eye.
It was rage trash-talking. He wasn’t saying how he was going to beat me, but saying how much I sucked. I had never seen that before. He was losing and the more he was losing the more abusive he became. I just took it, but I was boiling.
The match had gone over an hour before I won the first set. I was more exhausted from holding myself back from responding to the abuse than I was the match.
Then at a changeover he walked past me, glared at me and with full force kicked my tennis bag.
My anger boiled over.
“You can do all you want out here, but you can’t kick my bag,” I screamed. He didn’t say a word, just looking at me his eyes getting wider and his chest poking out like he was preparing for a fight. The silence bothered me so I said, “I have glasses in my bag.” I didn’t break anything,” he screamed. I kept walking to the other side of the court. “That doesn’t make a difference,” I screamed back.
I looked over at the tournament director’s girlfriend. She was angry as well, although I thought it was for her boyfriend leaving her to be in the middle of this situation. Hearing the commotion in the first set, a bunch of people had gathered to watch. The match was in an urban park and the locals who may have never cared about tennis wanted to see what the ruckus was about.
They seemed to both welcome my going back at him and be afraid about what might happen next. I was in a car crash and I wasn’t driving.
The crowd watching, and my outburst, only seemed to make my opponent’s behavior worse. I started to wonder if he might have a weapon in his bag. But I was so enraged myself that I didn’t care. I wasn’t married at the time and at that point was willing to die on that court.
I won the next game.
Then my opponent took all three balls and launched them, one at a time, over the fence as far as he could. He sat down in the center of the court at the serving T, as if it was a 1960s sit in.
I walked over to the fence where the tournament director’s girlfriend was sitting on the other side.
“What do I do now?” I asked.
She did not respond, just got up and walked in the direction of where he balls might have landed. She eventually came back with balls, even though I wasn’t sure they were the ones we were using. I didn’t care. About 15 minutes had gone by and I was beyond furious. If he couldn’t get defaulted for that there was no way she was going to do anything. I imagined her thinking that she didn’t want the rage being directed to me to be directed at her.
My opponent was still sitting in the same spot at the service line.
I took the balls and went back to serve. To my surprise, he got up and went back to return.
The pattern continued. Long points with me winning most of them and outbursts after every point where he told me how much I had nothing. I would cross over on the other side of the court so I was never closer than 20 feet away from him. I was afraid he was going to take a swing at me if I got within five feet
Finally I closed it out.
Now came the hard part. I would have to come to the net to shake his hand. I know if I didn’t go to shake his hand that may send him over the edge even more. But I was scared if I put my hand out he would sucker punch me.
So I thought I might say something to defuse the situation.
So I timed my steps. I got within 10 steps when I decided, well, he did fight hard, and maybe if I compliment him on that I can get out of this situation without any more problems.
“I said, “You sure fought hard out there,” as I put out my hand. He shook it as he yelled. “I should have been seeded in this tournament and not faced you in the semifinals.” Huh?
“I am 16th in the East,” he continued. I had a flashback to my working life and said, just to be factually correct: “You couldn’t be 16th in the East. My friend Ken Rosewall was 16th in the East. ‘
It was a Lucille Ball, “slowly I turn moment” moment.
His eyes became flares. “KEN ROSEWALL IS YOUR FRIEND? THAT IS THE GUY WHO GOT ME ARRESTED!!!”
I realized at that point, it was Berserker.
I quickly grabbed my bag with a dent in the side of it. But Berserker was in hot pursuit. “I should have kicked his ass when I had the opportunity!” I was in a full sprint at this point. “And if you weren’t running away I would kick yours too.”
I was on the other side of the fence at this point.
I asked the tournament director what time the final would be. She tells me and says, “Thank you for your patience.”
Luckily, Berserker was still on the other side of the fence, but he was leaning right against it screaming about how he was going to get me. I heard him scream something about what he would do to me in a rematch.
I had heard enough, and from the safety of the other side of the fence I screamed back, “You wouldn’t have a chance.” I hustled to my car.
The last thing I heard from him was how I have to learn to be a better winner.