I don’t love starting off on a sour note, but the subject matter demands I tell you about a person I have no interest in hitting with.
One wretchedly hot morning last week, a friend and I were nearing the business end of a set. We were both playing well. We each contributed evenly to an encouragement echo-chamber of our own making. Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.
As I was getting ready to serve, a guy approached the fence and asked how much longer we’d be playing—a valid question in the public court context—and “10 minutes or so,” was my polite reply. I smiled and went to turn, but he wasn’t done. “How about we just smoke you guys in doubles?,” he asked, motioning to another guy who was pretending not to hear.
I had immediate regrets about ever smiling. My tone dulled, and I dismissed the idea without a reason. Beyond his impatience, here was a man whose audacity was commensurate with his delusion. IMAGINE, then, my glee when I later looked over to see him hitting with the gusto of a just-caught fish flopping around on deck.
I’ve written before about the irrelevance of etiquette in 2025, surmising unhelpfully that things ain’t what they used to be and etiquette, what even is that? But here’s where my ethical inflexibility starts to show. These words are my own / from my heart flow: impatient bystanders trying to co-opt a stranger’s court with trash-talk best be able to walk the walk. Not that I needed to see his cramped, all-arm forehand to know his fraudulence.
We unfortunately interacted a second time a few days later. Sir told me his “build” (huge, manly) makes it hard for him to find hitting partners (“People see me and they’re like nah”.) I want to let you good people know that I did not bite! I nodded. I kept my eyes locked on a bogus spam email folder I had summoned on my phone. I of course won’t be devolving into an excavation of fragile masculinity (again, the year is 2025) but this guy went on to tell me he’s a 4.0. Separate gripe, but can we stop putting so much emphasis on NTRP scores? It’s confusing people and making them fib.
Speaking of fibbing—I’ve done it
I have exchanged numbers with people I know I’ll never hit with in the name of people-pleasing, and you can take that, and its Freudian roots, up with my mother. Internet therapists will have you know no is a complete sentence, but there are less cold ways. And so, I non-consensually collaborated with some Redditors to bring you some different ways to say no.
Option 1: Tell them your schedule can’t take it
This very virtuous poster is NOT into deceit, but you and I both know a good white lie when we see one. Even the squirrelly polyamorist can only fit so many bodies on the roster. A schedule full of friends is a dignified way to reject someone because it shows routine and loyalty—characteristics liars don’t have.
Option 2: Don’t say no to your non-tennis friends
*A quick data-related note: Racquet’s overlord, Caitlin, informed me the last dispatch of See You In Court contained the magazine’s first-ever recording of the word ‘cunt’. Pls clap for your trailblazing host. I did not go out of my way to drop a second so soon; but this Redditor has a point: don’t be one.
Your regular friends saw Challengers and ever since, have looked at you with new, opportunistic eyes. That or they’d just like to do something together other than “grabbing dinner”. In the words of disgraced self-help author, Mel Robbins, Let Them. Let them hit your glacial balls and if the whole thing is just too excruciating, go to a bar after and tell them you forgot your wallet.
Option 3: Start a business
Now obviously, a common reason for declining an invitation is a mismatch in skill, or at least some preconceived notions about one (oh, they use that grip for a serve?). Some of us are happy to play lower* for the culture. The culture being that we also enjoy playing higher. If you’re someone with no heart community spirit, refer them to your hourly rate. Everyone has a price.
*Not too much lower; I am charitable to strangers only to a point.
Option 4: Hit with them and prove your little point
This approach asks, so you think you can dance? It says, the cream will rise. Here’s your chance to reveal the vast delta between you both, and never hear from them again. Unless of course, you tend to choke against worse players.
I’ll report back if I ever renege and hit with my 4-point-no adversary—but only if I win.
