Climbing Mt. Everest

Intuitively, I understand that professional players are much better than I will ever be. That is why they make a living playing tennis, and I write computer programs.

Nevertheless, I try to learn more about playing tennis, and to improve my game. Occasionally, however, I get a little frustrated. Yesterday was one such day.

There were these two guys, probably in their early 20s, playing one another. From time to time, when you go to a court, you see players that are pretty good. Still, despite being pretty good, there's something about their game that looks self-taught, that doesn't quite look right. In other words, it's not a textbook shot.

Furthermore, often some stroke is not that good, usually the serve.

These two guys hit really well, from serves to groundstrokes. Once you're that good, then playing at a public court is usually a bad idea, because you're likely to be playing right next to players that suck and they're likely to hit a ball into your court.

Most good players get really finicky about playing games. If a ball rolls in the court, they immediately stop the point, and play it again. Never mind that things like wind can also cause play to get distracted, and that they could learn to ignore such things and play on. It's just traditional tennis to play this way. Any distraction means a replay in points.

These people started getting upset that we were hitting balls into their court.

Despite being impatient and therefore unlikeable, I thought it was worth paying attention to how they hit. I was also rather frustrated that as hard as I might work, they may still be better than I will ever be. What is it they know that I don't know. I realize I might have to take a gazillion lessons to find out, and those lessons wouldn't come cheap.

And that is frustrating.

Fortunately, I went out today, and hit some more, and that feeling of frustration went away. I didn't hit fantastic, but I didn't seem to mind as much. I think partly it's because I paid attention to what they did and it was helpful to my game.