My Twilight Zone USTA Tournament Experience

I’ve had some wacky matches over the years of playing USTA tournaments but this one today takes the cake.

There was only two of us in the Open so we played the final today at Ramapo College at 2.

I didn’t know much about the opponent who I will call Jake, except he plays a ton of tournaments, and has some decent results. Also he came all the way from Long Island, at least a two-hour trek without traffic. Someone who knows both of us tells me I will win easily but I’m not sure of that because one of his wins a few years ago – I looked up his record – was a three set marathon win against a guy who recently gave me my first and only loss in the Bergen Tennis league.

The kid running the event tells me my opponent “Jake” is on the court, so I go out to the court. When he sees I’ve arrived he walks through the junior court match, to come to the sign up tent for some reason, I didn’t watch why, but I noticed he rudely walked right through the court in the middle of a point. That was the first red flag.

So we meet on the court and the first words he says to me are, “How old are you?” I reply, “72” to bust his chops. I don’t like to be dictated to before a match or dealing with aggressive unfriendly questions, then I added, I’ll tell you after the match.

In the warm-up he shows he’s very consistent and steady and I realize it’s going to be a battle. And sure enough it is. He wins toss and lets me serve.

The first game is a fifteen minute marathon, long rallies, moonballs and not much aggression. I make a couple of errors and am down two break points. But I win the next two points after more long rallies. One winner came on a backhand slice down the line which caught him by surprise. Another came on a net foray on one of his moonballs, he hit a backhand long by a yard. I win the game for 1-0 and I notice he’s really annoyed for blowing those two break points – he smacks a ball hard into the fence..

Jake serves and again goes up 40-15, as I miss a few shots because I’m surprised my his patience and consistency – most players don’t play this way. But I buckle down and get it back to deuce again with a lunging backhand stab on a short ball which ends up a winning drop shot on his side, he can’t believe I hit a winner from such an imbalanced position. The battle continues. A couple of deuces, then I miss a forehand wide by an inch or so. The next point, his game point, he serves a rocket which pops his string on his Wilson. I decide to play patient and force him to miss, make him suffer with that broken string. After three shots each, he suddenly bails and says he wants to do it over, get a new racquet and start the point over again at ad-in.

I protest that the point is mine because he stopped the point right in the middle of the point. The point IS MINE, we both, everyone knows the rules, you must finish point with broken string or lose the point if you stop. Back to deuce.

But he’s lying and trying to take the point. It’s a huge point and I won’t give it so we have to go to the tent again and get the director. Again, Jake barges through the junior court right in the middle of a point.

We discuss the situation and this guy is nuts, he keeps insisting it’s ad-in, the point is a do-over. Loudly and rudely, refusing to accept the rules. The Asian father of one of the juniors yells at Jake and tells him he will physically move him away from the courts if he doesn’t shut up. He then tells me, he can’t believe I’m able to tolerate his insanity.

Finally the acting director has to call the tournament director on the phone and they somehow rule that the last point we both agree on his ad-in for him, so they will give him ad-in. I’m very annoyed now and yell Okay let’s go, I’m going to destroy you now on the court, let’s go. I’m really pumped up now. But it turns out this nut doesn’t have a second racquet to play with.

He doesn’t even have a car. He came all the way from Long Island via three trains and his bike which he biked I presume about five miles from the Ramsey train station.

The guy starts asking everyone to borrow a racquet, even ME. After he cheated me and lied about the point – he actually said the string break came on the previous point – he actually asked me to give him an extra racquet and finish the match. I reply, flatly, No, not after you lied and cheated me on a big point am I going to do you a favor.

Then the acting director gets the word on the phone from the director to give me the default. He tells me to leave soon to avoid trouble, and he will give me the default win and the USTA points for the victory, I agree to leave. Then the guy keeps pestering me to give him my racquet and finish the match. I say no and leave the courts. He’s following me and threatening to fight, “Come on let’s go,” the acting director has to block him. I tell him I’m not going to fight here but if you want you can follow me and we can deal with the situation in private. He makes some lunges and threats and has to be separated, I feel his insanity and put my racquets down and water, take off my hat and shades and assume boxing stance if he comes at me. Is this really happening? At a tennis tournament?!?

Shortly after, I go to my car and I can hear he’s demanding to get his money back from the tournament. Then he gets his gear and walks to his locked up bike, walking by two campus security cars who just pulled up to the scene. He gets on his bike and pedals away.

I decide to go over to security to tell them my side of the story, just in case someone tells lies and tries to frame me as the bad guy.

Clearly this character was a bit mentally off – not only for his lying and cheating behavior but also taking three trains and a bike to a tennis tournament with only one single Wilson racquet is abnormal behavior. The last words I heard him say as he walked and talked on the phone with the director were, “Are you going to give me my (entry) money back? Give me my money back…”

But I’ll take the win and hope we can play again, a fair clean match without any irrational nonsense. The guy is quite a good player, smart, consistent and focused. It would be nice to turn this negative into a positive, plus I’d like to beat him and make him pay for his cheating ways, hopefully teach him a valuable lesson.

If you have a stranger match story experience, please share it, thank you.

The broken string caused chaos

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