Cindysphinx
G.O.A.T.
Well, it finally happened. I actually got mad at someone. And now I feel guilty about it. 
We were playing a 7.0 mixed match against one of the top teams. The woman was a 3.0 (bumped last night to 3.5) and the guy was a 4.0 (bumped last night to 4.5). My partner (bumped from 3.5 to 4.0) and I were therefore overmatched by .5. And we were getting killed. We were coming nowhere close to breaking this guy's serve, as he was serving bombs *and* following them to net. Ah well. Sometimes you just know it's not your night.
Anyway, this guy is serving at 5-3 for the first set. He serves a blast to my partner on set point, and it is long. I call it long, and my partner calls it long at the same time he drives a return. The guy walks to net and says something I can't quite hear. I figure he is going to question the line call, so I walk up to hear him out. It goes down like this:
"Yeah, what's up?"
"That serve was out, so your partner's not supposed to return it. That's against the rules. I'm entitled to two serves now."
"No, you're not. The rule says we're not to play obviously out faults. That ball was out, but it wasn't obviously out."
"Nope, you're wrong. The rules say I get a let when you do that. I have the rules in my bag."
"Where in the rules does it say that? You better go get those rules out of your bag, then. 'Cause if you can show me that you get two serves if my partner can't stop his swing on a fast serve, I'll give you two serves every time."
"The rules say I can call a let whenever I want!"
"That's ridiculous. If you want us not to return out serves, you're going to need to serve a lot slower."
At this point, he turned and walked back to the baseline and shouted over his shoulder: "GAMESMANSHIP!"
When everyone had taken their positions, I said: "SECOND SERVE!!" OK, I admit I shouldn't have done that. I did it specifically to twist the knife. Normally, I would have given someone two serves if we needed to have some big discussion between first and second serve.
He looked up and shot me a murderous look, then proceeded to serve another bomb, my partner popped it up, this guy smashed it and then jumped up and down and whooped a bit to celebrate winning the first set.
During the second set, he suddenly became very interested in the score. I was serving, and for obvious reasons I was struggling to come up with any serve this guy wouldn't blast back at me. I finally nailed a pretty good one, and he caught it and said, "Score, please." I said, "I announced the score as 30-15." He flicks the ball back at me and says, "I didn't hear you."
The weird thing is that he was otherwise a nice guy. After the match, which we lost 3 and 3, he and I hit for about 30 minutes, and then I chatted with him and his wife for a while. Both were nice people, so bygones were bygones, apparently.
But something about his bluffing about having the rules, his accusing us of gaming him, and that ridiculous notion that he can call a let whenever he wants really pushed my buttons. Dude, you're killing us already, and now you don't want us to swing at your 100 mph rockets?
We were playing a 7.0 mixed match against one of the top teams. The woman was a 3.0 (bumped last night to 3.5) and the guy was a 4.0 (bumped last night to 4.5). My partner (bumped from 3.5 to 4.0) and I were therefore overmatched by .5. And we were getting killed. We were coming nowhere close to breaking this guy's serve, as he was serving bombs *and* following them to net. Ah well. Sometimes you just know it's not your night.
Anyway, this guy is serving at 5-3 for the first set. He serves a blast to my partner on set point, and it is long. I call it long, and my partner calls it long at the same time he drives a return. The guy walks to net and says something I can't quite hear. I figure he is going to question the line call, so I walk up to hear him out. It goes down like this:
"Yeah, what's up?"
"That serve was out, so your partner's not supposed to return it. That's against the rules. I'm entitled to two serves now."
"No, you're not. The rule says we're not to play obviously out faults. That ball was out, but it wasn't obviously out."
"Nope, you're wrong. The rules say I get a let when you do that. I have the rules in my bag."
"Where in the rules does it say that? You better go get those rules out of your bag, then. 'Cause if you can show me that you get two serves if my partner can't stop his swing on a fast serve, I'll give you two serves every time."
"The rules say I can call a let whenever I want!"
"That's ridiculous. If you want us not to return out serves, you're going to need to serve a lot slower."
At this point, he turned and walked back to the baseline and shouted over his shoulder: "GAMESMANSHIP!"
When everyone had taken their positions, I said: "SECOND SERVE!!" OK, I admit I shouldn't have done that. I did it specifically to twist the knife. Normally, I would have given someone two serves if we needed to have some big discussion between first and second serve.
He looked up and shot me a murderous look, then proceeded to serve another bomb, my partner popped it up, this guy smashed it and then jumped up and down and whooped a bit to celebrate winning the first set.
During the second set, he suddenly became very interested in the score. I was serving, and for obvious reasons I was struggling to come up with any serve this guy wouldn't blast back at me. I finally nailed a pretty good one, and he caught it and said, "Score, please." I said, "I announced the score as 30-15." He flicks the ball back at me and says, "I didn't hear you."
The weird thing is that he was otherwise a nice guy. After the match, which we lost 3 and 3, he and I hit for about 30 minutes, and then I chatted with him and his wife for a while. Both were nice people, so bygones were bygones, apparently.
But something about his bluffing about having the rules, his accusing us of gaming him, and that ridiculous notion that he can call a let whenever he wants really pushed my buttons. Dude, you're killing us already, and now you don't want us to swing at your 100 mph rockets?
