How to deal with cheaters.

[GeoffWilliams]

..........................

[don_budge]

Cheaters...

I played a lot of competitive tennis in my time. I played a lot of competitive sports for that matter. Basketball was my other sport of passion. I played a lot of "ghetto ball" when I was growing up. We were left to police ourselves and sometimes it got a bit hysterical, if you can imagine. I worked for a large corporation for 25 years. That experience wrote the book on cheating as far as I am concerned. Fellow workers...fellow rats. Management ethics...what's the bottom line? It's the nature of the beast.

During my tennis days, I was initiated early. In the first sanctioned tournament that I played in I played the first seed in the first round and he was pretty much kicking my ass all over the court. Late in the second set I think that I won a game from him and he didn't take very kindly to that and he launched into me about a line call. Accusing and making a spectacle of me. Being uninitiated in the world of tennis gamesmanship I got a baptism by fire.

Not that I am a tough guy or anything...ok maybe I am in some respects. But I learned not to take any crap from anybody on any tennis court or anywhere else for that matter. Believe me...they were always dishing it up on me in big heaps. I don't know...maybe it was my appearance somehow. They used to give me a lot of Indian nicknames. This was before the days of political correctness. We had to fend for ourselves...there were no thought police to save us.

So you learn in life. She can serve up some rather tough lessons. So can tennis. But I learned how to fight and I learned how to fight the whole shebang. The system that is. When I was 18 in 1972 there was the very real prospect of being served notice that I was going to go to Vietnam where I could have the honor of being killed in some god forsaken rice patty in the name of my country. Guess what...I wasn't going to have it. Screw that. I guess I got the reputation for being something of a rebel...refusing to go along with the status quo. That would of been cheating too...dying in Vietnam. I stood up to the system.

I was fighting my way up the food chain of competitive tennis. In some ways my efforts were sort of half assed. There were a lot of distractions in my neck of the woods. On my side of the tracks. I was playing against the sons of the establishment alright. They had money, fancy cars and the best clothes and racquets. Fresh wood. Fresh gut strings. There were already advantages built into the system...into the game. You couldn't really call it cheating. Not really. It was the luck of the draw.

Somehow I managed to secure a scholarship to a medium sized university and I had the opportunity to play number one singles. As luck would have it I drew my old nemesis at one of the conference championships and he was the number one seed again. We played on his home court. I beat him. Nobody gave me a chance as he was undefeated but I knew going into the match one thing...I wasn't going to give it to him and I had a tactical game plan that I executed to the Tee.

To make a long story short and to cut to the chase. Cheating is a way of life for some. Some have no choice and therefore it isn't cheating...it is survival. But a few years down the road and immediately after I seemed to be making some headway in the food chain of competitive tennis they abruptly changed the rules. All along I had been playing the Jack Kramer Pro Staff model wood racquet but one year there was a new "kid" in town. His name was "Prince Graphite". Kramer meet Prince. That was truly fucked up. That was cheating and everyone knew it but the fix was in and the smart guys switched leaving the poets and philosophers to struggle in the alleys with their very own existential crisis. Stuck with a sense of right and wrong and a street mentality as opposed with the corporate mentality I stuck with my guns...I stubbornly stuck with the Pro Staffs.

For a couple of years they could of sold tickets. Whenever I encountered a opponent using a Prince Graphite it became a test of survival...back to ghetto ball. I guess that I would sort of get "ghetto" with them. The gloves were off and everything was on the table. Everything. Cheat me? We'd see about that. I'd been watching a lot of "Raging Bull" and "Taxi Driver". "Mean Streets" and stuff like that.

Up until that point I guess I had seen it all. Vietnam, friends going off to war that never returned. Fickle women. Growing up with my own set of limiting logistics. None of it mattered to me. I never complained. I soldiered on. Until faced with this conundrum...the disparity in tennis equipment. To this day this is the most cheated that I ever felt in my life. Nothing even approaches my sense of outrage that I felt so many years ago. Line calls and misrepresenting the score...it is only children at play. I stayed true to my game which was the love of my life. But such is life...she in the end found someone bigger, shinier, more powerful and more expensive. It was a great lesson. Even though he never approached my substance...I had outlived my usefulness. I gave her my innocence and got repaid in scorn.

How do I deal with a cheater? Well I don't know...it's been a while. But back then...back in the day...I would get right in their face and not back down. Never. Gonzales style. The only retreating was tactical. I guess I haven't really changed all that much. Afterall...leopards don't change their spots, do they? If anything I've become more skilled at it...getting better at it. I know the score. You want to cheat me? At your own risk.

[stotty]

Princes and cheats

Two things, don_budge.

1. Most cheats don't consider themselves cheats. Many become quite indignant if they are accused of cheating. That's because they are "wishful thinkers", not cheats. Everyone knows that to be given the label of a cheat in tennis means you will be cast out and be less likeable to others. Being seen as a respectful and popular citizen is not something people give up lightly in exchange for unpopular line calls. No, the wishful thinkers call tight balls out because they "thinks" they are. If in doubt they will always call out.

Deliberate cheats are far rarer and have often been rejected in one way or another in life...chip on the shoulder...thinks everyone's against them...sceptical/mistrustful of others. This kind of guy wants to get back at people. He has been cast out anyway and therefore has nothing to lose...and he is out purely for himself. He has little to look forward to except being good at his sport, which he'll strive to do at any cost.

2. The Prince Graphite changed tennis forever. I agree. All of a sudden people who had never be able volley or smash, suddenly could. Lower ranked players within my club started to play better without seeming to earn it. To me that was a swizz. We are agreed on that one.

[GeoffWilliams]

Shortly after came the titanium frames: ie, I used a match mate. That frame developed a crack on the top left edge. The string then warped that frame into a "gumby" shaped head, with one side creating a sharp angle, and the whole frame then became almost square to that side, yet rounded on the other side. I strung it with a new string back then: prince stop light, which had three colors< green>yellow>red as it wore down. I strung it very low, which gave that frame absurd topspin. I even won a local open with it, due to the spin no one had seen before. Then the frame just broke in half, but I grew to love it no matter what the substance it was made of, and no matter how badly it was shaped.

Desire can often create resistance to change, and block us from accepting who we are as players, or who we could be.

That frame felt great, even as badly damaged as it was. I could have been put off by its imperfection, and ignored that feeling. By not holding onto my desire to look good, I won that tournament anyway. (Didn't really have any back up frames.)