My most sincere apologies go out to two of my favorite local stringing customers, David and Marcia, for they would have won our tennis division and the prestigious bag tag but for my butt.

In Atlanta we are fortunate to have massively large tennis leagues. The largest is an organization known as ALTA, the Atlanta Lawn Tennis Association, with over 85,000 participants. This past winter, I was participating in a MxD league where my team faced off against several of my local stringing customers. (It’s pretty cool to watch doubles matches and know that all four racquets being used were strung by our shop, but that’s another story for another day!)

On-court battles were waged for 7 weeks as 8 teams battled down to the wire for the division title. In the end the final standings found the division champions winning by a single point with David and Marcia’s team coming in second place, while my team was down near the rear. However, I may have unintentionally rumpled some feathers with my performance against the division winners.

It was a cold and blustery day, and one I won’t soon forget. During the second game of the first set I lunged hard for a forehand and ended up on the court in pain as my Gluteus Maximus was stretched to the maximus. Yep, I had literally pulled a butt muscle. The injury was a bum deal as my partner and I, who were undefeated, found ourselves at a severe disadvantage against a team we most likely could have taken down.

I had a haunch that I could continue, so we played on. My mobility was limited and I was unable to push-off on serves and ground strokes. Still, it was only one cheek, so you could say I was literally playing half-ass tennis that day.  (Which is only slightly different than normal, when I figuratively play half-ass tennis.)  Ultimately we would lose in straight sets, 5-7, 4-6. The scores were close enough that we derriere to believe we might have won had my fanny held itself together.

The sad result is that my backside not only gave our opponents the single point they needed to win the division, but it prevented my long-time customers from winning while spoiling my partner’s undefeated season. When the division winner receives their champion bag tags they really do need to give me thanks. In fact I would go so far as to say they should kiss my…gluteus maximus.