Category: Sports

Notes from UGA Women’s Tennis vs Arkansas, 20180413

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Dogs blast off, 4-0, played well, thanks.

GENERAL NOTES
I’m the only one in the stands. All the rituals seem especially devoid of theater. I found a loose ball on the way to my seat, I’m coyly wondering if I should strategically sling it onto the court to disrupt a point. What if I’ve just been feigning neutrality? What if I love the dogs so much I’m not even going to drink throughout this match? A fan that just cried out sounded like Sissy Spacek, I suppose there are others here. So I’m not needed.

THE AVANT-GARDE OF HOG-DOG
Playing the razorbacks, shortened to “hogs”, which rhymes with “dogs”, sometimes there’s a rhythmic following of one by the other, hog-dog, dog-hog,
Go hog
Go dog
Dog hog
Dog dogs
Hogs dogs
Go hogs go
Dogs

Here’s a playlist of avant garde musical pieces I imagined mapping this sonic scheme onto.

Notes from UGA Men’s Tennis vs Mississippi State, 20180330

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*Left before the match’s conclusion, did not look good for the dawgs, down 2-0 and dropped most if not all first sets in singles.

LOCAL NEWS
Busted my head getting excited during the part of “Best of You” by Foo Fighters when all instruments drop in, explode.

OVERARCHING SPIRIT/PREPARATION OF A TEAM, NOTED CURIOUSLY IN INDIVIDUAL MATCHUPS
It’s interesting to note how entire teams can ride waves of energy, and these momentums can manifest on each court. A team can ride a wave of energy that might begin with a single point on a court (they’ll get cheered for and say “Let’s go!”). If it comes from somewhere, is it small like that, can it not be the more mysterious “I got a feeling” emanated collectively? Sometimes the team that’s hot for a few games will run out of steam, it’s like all they had on the other team and the only thing that made them better than a team better than them was enthusiasm. Some of this is confidence that actively works on the players’ ability to execute their game, relaxes them, makes them more amenable to go for their shots. Some of it too (overlapping) is a head game to convince the other team that something’s in the air and it’s against them.

PROPOSITIONS ABOUT THE MISSISSIPPI STATE MEN’S TENNIS TEAM
1. They like the simple things.
2. They know their way around the bedroom.
3. They do not have glamorous styles and will not ultimately do better than the dawgs individually, as far as tennis careers beyond college, but they have enough grit and intensity to come into Athens and kick the hell out of the dawgs. Man, how about that “Best of You” song, yeah
4. They seem to know what the crowd senses about them, and when things unfold these players show a deep sense of understanding.
5. They don’t seem to have listened to any of my music or understand that I recently played a show.

WORRIES
Worried about the dawgs. Do not give a shit if they win, I’m here for good tennis and to relax, but something doesn’t seem right, and their spirit/general air is bad. It’s heavy to witness, they need Art of War read to them.

Notes from UGA Men’s Tennis vs Tennessee, 20180325

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*dogs lose 4-3, comes down to the sixth singles court.

ZA POPULI ZA DIEU
Slinging slices of pizza out into the crowd was a very great thing thank you to the university, the alumni association, the athletics department, the coaches and staff here very grateful to the operation for slinging slices of pizza into the crowd for free.

THE STORY OF THE PLAYER IN THEIR CONTROL OF LOOSE BALLS AND GAME FLOW
In tennis, at every level but the highest ones, the players themselves are responsible for retrieving the balls between points. Because there is a potential for a second serve if the first is out, each point ideally begins with the server in possession of an extra ball, so that they can attempt a second serve if need be without the distraction and effort of finding a ball. At the end of every point, the ball that’s been in play is either at the net, rolling around in the court, resting at the back of the court, or has ventured onto an adjacent court (or has been hit out of facility). Within each of these possibilities, there are many different potential actions a player can take, all of which have to do with self-care, concern for others, and ritual. Some want to push unwanted balls into corners (if on a corner court), for some combination of wanting the ball to be further out of the way or in order to take more time between points (or again, because that’s what they do and it’s comforting to do it over and over). The player will normally have a strategy regarding pace, and will either slow down when their opponent is hot, or go fast to tire out an opponent or to feed on momentum.

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Notes from UGA Women’s Tennis vs UF, 20180316

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The UGA women’s team can be summed up with one word: power. Also two secondary characterizations: flexibility, and malleability.  Also, a triumvirate of observable nodes: intensity, humility, and volumes. These are in some sense confirmed, in some sense modified, by a tenuous quadrant of signature mannerisms: whacking, thwacking, negotiating, and the grunt.

LOCAL COLOR
Some chum was schlepping around a soggy bog of Zaxby’s, said wad rendered him talkative (but his commentary was corny).

SOMETHING ELSE
Players will mentally take themselves out of the match because of what they perceive to be a bad call. Sometimes these calls aren’t that bad or are even correct, but when they’re not correct and they are bad, something happens where the player can’t get over the complex of feelings having to do with the system not working, of a small but very significant injustice (these points reveal that the mental advantage of any match can shift over the course of a single point). What’s interesting isn’t whether calls are right, but how players allow the circumstances of single points to infect the remainder of their play: were they hoping for a reason to give up? Did the injustice do them the favor of having something outside themselves to point to for their loss? Is there more at stake in addressing one’s limits than in winning?

With all these questions in mind, I think of a certain tactic that can make a play on this part of the opposing player’s psyche. Sometimes a player will call a ball out in order to try and get away with it, in other words, to try and win that point. But what can also happen is, a player will call out a ball that they know is in, or is close, not just to try and win that point, but to get into the head of the opposing player. To make the player think that they are playing a cheater, that the integrity of the game they are playing is compromised, that whatever limit they think they are running up against is compounded with this dynamic of an unfair opponent and a system futile to stop such a stunt. An opponent that calls into question the nature of the game is at the mercy of the player who has so bought in that they’re willing to wager some part of themselves and their ethical makeup in the rules of the game.

Notes from UGA Women’s Tennis vs Tennessee, 20180310

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THE LETTER OF THE STROKE VERSUS ITS SPIRIT
You have to get the ball back even if your opponent’s strokes look like dogshit and aesthetically bum you out.  In this respect, an ugly stroke that produces a good ball is better than a beauty that fails.

DETAILS
I shushed someone, who then said it’s okay to talk during the match, to which I replied, oh, shit, I know, I mean shut up for my sake.

A local howled like a hellhound because of a nice slice backhand.

Rowdy group of twenty-somethingss developed a ‘ha-ooh!’ chant like from the movie 300, which is only watched and enjoyed by fascists. After an anonymous tip, no one knows from whom, the youths were taken away by authorities.

I can’t prove it, but the match on Court 3 swung in our favor when I suggested our player imagine the ball was an old bloke telling her to smile.

VARIATIONS ON MASCOT I DIDN’T EXPECT TO HEAR
hot juicy dogs
hogs

SONG BLASTING FROM THE BASEBALL PARK DURING WHICH I HAD THE WORST GAS
“Seven Nation Army” by the white stripes

DISAPPOINTMENT OF THE DAY
Been going to these matches for a few years now and can’t remember a match in which there wasn’t some incident and/or general sentiment involving the crowd that didn’t embarrass me and make me completely resent both the effect on the players and implication that I might agree with it and/or feel okay about being complacent because I’m a fan of the home team. Such is the extent that competition engenders maliciousness, lack of critical thought and care, lack of perspective, etc.