I went to the sec­ond league meet yes­ter­day, and it was def­i­nite­ly anoth­er expe­ri­ence. The diver­si­ty of all the play­ers is just amaz­ing. Their per­son­al­i­ties come out in every lit­tle detail, from their style of play, to how they lose a point, to how they serve.

There’s the team con­sist­ing most­ly of elder­ly ladies in their sweat pants, along with their lit­tle, sup­port­ive peanut gallery of friends who cheer and clap after every point. Sometimes the play­ers try to high five each oth­er when they get a good ral­ly in dou­bles, but end up shak­ing hands in a sort of awk­ward way. The most they ever say when they lose a point is, “Phooie!”, and fake an angry foot stomp, and are always the first ones to approach you for a hand shake. These are the ones who play social­ly, as some­thing to do on Sunday with their friends between what I’m guess­ing is tea and nap time.

On the oth­er end of the spec­trum, there are the play­ers who wear faces of dire aggres­sion as soon as the point starts, as if they’ll throw their pad­dles down and punch you in the face if you serve them an ace. These are the ones who intro­duce them­selves, state their provin­cial rank­ing, and imme­di­ate­ly ask for yours. They have no prob­lem with shout­ing one word exple­tives to release their frus­tra­tion when they’re los­ing, even when they’re play­ing next to the peanut gallery pre­vi­ous­ly men­tioned. They don’t play for fun, they play to kick your ass.

Continue read­ing “Characters At A League Meet”…