#Learning to Play Tennis

[goddesspharo]

Are the two of us still playing for your number? I thought I won. That's your problem. You always think you've won before the match is over.

[sheltoner]

hello tennisblr i have a very important question

please please please reblog this so more people see, i’m not a very big blog but i want to know other people’s answers to this 🙏

[autisticlee]

is it an autistic experience to ALWAYS be the one in a friend group who gets left out, alienated, secretly disliked, then kicked out of the group?

[koka-mi]

Y'all I might.ask my mom to let me take piano lessons....

[batsplat]

The reigning World Champion got the drive out of the final corner, but not enough to make the difference over the line. So Stoner did the smart thing, attaching himself to Rossi's tailpipe, never more than a breath behind the Italian, turning The Doctor's usual tactics against the old master. Flattered by such attention, Rossi returned the compliment, looking positively Stoneresque in his obliviousness to what was happening behind him. There could have been one Ducati behind him, or a thousand, Valentino Rossi seemed to be riding in blissful, and willful, ignorance of what was going on to the rear.

(x) kinda cute if u think about it. both of them taking on the role of the other in their most infamous duel. casey turning valentino's tactics 'against the old master'. valentino 'returning the compliment' by acting like casey. the line between the pair of them blurring in the heat of battle. 'flattered by such attention'...

there's an ask I am attempting to answer rn where I'm slapping my hands not to start using agassi/sampras quotes to talk about the rossi/stoner rivalry. so I'm just gonna do it here instead. this sampras quote is not not relevant imo:

and to ME this agassi quote also works as a description of laguna 2008:

(see here for more about the agassi/sampras rivalry)

the challenges of a rivalry forcing both sides not just to adapt but also to imitate each other... the tension causing this blurring of the line between the two of them, despite how defined this rivalry is by their differences... no hope of justice, and everyone will blame the victim...

also. not to be too bold here. but this bit is also sort of valentino/casey, wherein they both have a very different understanding of what constitutes 'best' and 'worst':

casey IN SOME WAYS low key valentino's favourite rival solely during the years where they were actually competing for titles, because he's super challenging and tricky to beat and forces valentino to get creative but isn't emotionally messy and is instead kinda fun to play with. valentino switches to casey's tyre in 2008 - he has to learn to do what casey has already accomplished and succeed on the bridgestones, because that's the only way to compete against casey. valentino is a better rider in 2008 for having had to figure out the casey stoner puzzle!! admittedly he'd prefer to have done all that in a season where he spent a LITTLE more time actually racing w2w with his competitors in a way that would've played more to his strengths as a rider, but that's mostly not casey's fault... and crucially they have their One Defining Battle where valentino forcibly wrenches casey and their rivalry from casey's comfort zone to valentino's. and it's not just one race, right - the whole point of that battle is that implicitly it's valentino threatening casey by suggesting he will always do this when given half a chance. valentino learns from casey and adjusts his approach and then takes control of the rivalry by dragging casey down into the dirt with him

and then you've got casey, who very much did not love this rivalry. who is always talking about how much he learned from valentino, how he learned about having to stand up for himself on the track, with the media, had to learn to treat some riders with less respect, to suck up to the press, to race more aggressively, to sell himself better - and crucially NONE of these things he would want to be doing in an ideal world!! he doesn't want to have to ride aggressively and he CERTAINLY doesn't want to be a pr merchant. but he gets pretty good at all of these things... because he has to. because that's the sort of challenge valentino poses for him. and. again. not to get too bold here. but what's also interesting is how... there is just this sense that casey's development doesn't just help him in fighting valentino: the rivalry makes him an all-round better competitor. casey doesn't just talk about having to race valentino differently due to valentino's aggression - instead it's "after two years of racing people who don't worry about you", he's had to change. which, yes, is obviously mostly indirectly slagging off valentino, but in that same answer he's also saying EUROPEANS simply do not understand what he's talking about - this IS a grudge that extends beyond valentino, even if it's always focused around him. (obviously europeans are not inherently more aggressive riders than anglos but... let's not even touch that.) laguna is a turning point of his CAREER, not just of that particular rivalry. it made him realise he had to race only for himself, which is an ethos he carried with him even when they weren't direct rivals anymore. likewise, casey was already constantly feeling misrepresented by the media long long before valentino began working his dark magic. casey came to realise that refusing to engage with the media simply wasn't going to work for him... it's a process valentino jumpstarted, but its effects on casey's approach went beyond the immediate scope of that rivalry, eventually transforming casey into a far more effective communicator for it. casey learned valentino's tricks because that's what it takes to succeed in the sport - both in the literal sense of succeeding on-track as well as the more abstract sense of getting people on your side, selling your story to people. winning them over. even to casey, valentino remains the ultimate point of reference

and these are the parts of the sport casey wishes didn't exist, and they're all so closely connected to valentino. and THAT is where the tension comes from, because casey hates valentino in one breath and learns from him the other and always has to reckon with how much he is willing to cross his own lines to succeed. and it helped him be a better rider! but not in ways he actually liked. this grim tone in which he talks again and again about having had to learn to respond to what an arsehole valentino was... he did not want this. he did not want to have to learn these things. and yet casey ended up becoming a little more like valentino than he had been when their rivalry began. and so his discomfort with valentino becomes his discomfort with the sport becomes his discomfort with himself. and thus even for all the obvious contrast between the pair of them, the line that separates them would occasionally still be blurred

[rolandkaros]

6, 23, 25

-@fritzes

6. favorite surface to watch?

probably clay! objectively it's my favorite, plus imo clay matches are generally more fun and a lot of my favorite players are good on clay

23. what's your favorite stroke?

this is one of the ones i can't really answer 💀

more recently learned about the term "inside-out forehand" and have subsequently become very fond of it

25. if you could change the result of one match, which one would you pick?

my god, i mean. the easiest one would be rg final 2023, but idk, i feel like it's difficult bc at the time i actually was very happy with the result...and if iga didn't win she wouldn't have been year end #1. i think i don't have enough knowledge of tennis from previous years to give a non-recency-bias answer but my next would probably be wimbledon final 2023.

[muirneach]

once mirra learns emotional control its joever for the rest of the tour

[karkkidoeswriting]

Things I learned while watching Challengers: tennis is about gay sex

[sheltoner]

ok but i think the most telling thing about my personality is that when i was learning to walk as a baby (literally less than a year old) i would crawl to my room and shut the door so my parents wouldn’t see me fall. less than a year old and already self conscious

recent example relating to this blog is that i spent months lurking and looking at other tennis blogs and tennisblr in general so i could know exactly what to say when i actually made this blog

[midnight-stormm]

Can I just say how wholesome it is that george and sapnap played tennis together today. The fact that I believe is was sapnap first time playing tennis just makes everything better.

Im thinking about how george is correcting sapnap posture and showing him how to properly serve. Showing him how to hold the tennis racket. Showing him different kind of serves😭

[adore-gregor]

It's true sometimes others doubting you really is the best motivation :))

[m00sebaby]

just having a bit of a ramble dont mind me

[advantagetiafoe]

I'm the biggest advocate for American tennis until it comes to...

[phoebe-ofthe-cosmos]

when I get paid tomorrow I will (in this order): make a tuition payment for the fall semester, get my vacation pictures developed, buy a tennis racket and balls

[muirneach]

potential vekic vs qinwen r4 ohohohoooo

[greyworld10]

When you want to start playing tennis but the monsoon is upon us :(