Rollin’ with the High Seeds

Identity and Culture Moment: Rollin’ with the High Seeds

This past weekend was the USTA National Open--a level two tournament which hosts the nation’s 64 top tennis players in the 18 and under division. Because Hawaii is one of four tournaments that occur simultaneously, the top 224 players are accommodated in Honolulu, Texas, Florida, and Minnesota. With my national ranking in the 150 range, I got into the tournament without standing by on the alternate list. Skyler Tateishi is the Hawaii-Pacific section’s number one player (I’m second) so both of us, as well as Stephen Royalty & Jonell Magdaong were able to get into the draws. After a horrendous showing in singles for the Hawaii players, it was doubles up next. When the draws came out on Saturday afternoon, I learned that I was slated to play with a guy from California. Apparently, our combined ranking pushed us up the seedings so that we were the number 8 seeded team. Rain on Sunday postponed our match to Monday at 130 PM so after another night of anxiety and self-inspiration, I woke up and prepped for my match with Mr.Californication.
My friends were unavailable to warm me up so my father, who has absolutely no tennis experience, fed tennis balls to me from a basket. I was really groggy when I woke up this morning not because I slept late but because I was stuck in awake-sleep. I guess I was really pissy this morning so my father cut the practice to 20 minutes. We got to the Central Oahu Regional Park tennis courts at 1 PM and I checked in only to learn that my partner had not checked in. To add insult to injury (is that the right cliche?), the draw-makers replaced my previous partner with someone else, a guy from Florida. With the Floridian-orange as my partner, they upgraded us to 6th seed--the highest seeding I’ve ever held in such a prestigious tournament. At 130 PM, I checked back in with the desk to see if we were about to play. To my shock, amazement, and horror, I learned that my partner decided not to play and an upset loss he suffered earlier in the day in his singles match, wrenched him into a complete give-up attitude. I was really, really upset that some guy who took a 6-hour plane ride and another guy who took a 12 hour plane ride, could decide not to play and screw over someone they never knew, not even bothering tot make sure someone took his spot. Without a doubles partner, I was left the victim of an identity and culture moment.
It was really hard for me to understand how such a thing could happen in life. How can people bear to know that they ruined a stranger’s weekend with all the stress, the plans my family had to move to accommodate my schedule, the time I invested in being paranoid and prepared, only to realize that it would all be in vain? I’m lucky that I have such supportive people in my life who are willing to make things work when I need them to. I named this entry “Rollin’ with the High Seeds” because I realized that this weekend was about my encounter with high rollers. Singles is the main reason to participate in a tournament because a win there carries so much more credibility than doubles so, naturally, doubles falls in second priority. The only problem is that top players, like the two deusch bags I was supposed to partner with, think that screwing a local kid like me won’t hurt them. In the overall picture, they aren’t even affected but for me, personally, it pisses me off that they can come here, enter half-seriously into the doubles draw, then expect everything to work itself out when they pull out. Being in a situation where I wasn’t the best made me realize how people who are out of the top echelon, feel. To get stomped on by those who have the skill and abuse those beneath them was horrible. Ultimately, I felt used--used as an alternative, a fill-in, a “2nd best” choice that didn’t need to be considered during decision making. My disappointment wasn’t with the tournament officials who made the final decision to default my match, it was with the players whom I had never known/met but fell victim to, unimportant.
Seriously, if those guys ever read this post, I hope they felt bad for ruining my otherwise peachy 4 day weekend. Biotches.

Sorry if it doesn’t make any sense--I’m not sure if its suppossed to...