Doubles specialist Megan Moulton-Levy is playing her debut season for the Sacramento Capitals and is blogging about her experiences. Check out her first entry below and follow her on Twitter @moultonlevy.
Megan’s Memoirs #4: The Things Players Do -- July 20, 2013
Hey everyone,
I am going to let you in on a secret.... all tennis players are crazy, myself included.
I have a terrible case of OCD. My life is centered around water. I start every morning by drinking 1 liter of water. The rest of my day revolves around collecting and lining up the bottles of water that I will imbibe throughout the day.
Taylor has told us that she is very superstitious and can only hit on the south side of our stadium court. Olga Govortsova, who has so graciously filled in for Taylor, is known to pull out a shiny lip gloss or two during the matches. Knowlzee always warms up in a pair of ankle socks and right before the match changes to the white, calf-height Nike socks. The only one of us who might not have some crazy tennis superstition is Sweets. Or he hasn't revealed it yet :)
I am slowly starting to get to know Coach B. He is always gently nudging us to be better people and always encouraging us to reach out and talk to all the wonderful people who make Mylan WTT what it is. From the fans to the managing staff, he wants us to smile, shake hands, and say thank you. After witnessing his even keeled charisma the first few days we played I thought he was always as cool as a cucumber.
However, it was not until we played his boys, the Bryan Bros, that I saw his mean case of the nerves. It really came out during that match. We were on the bench watching the men's doubles and I looked to my right only to see him with his hands clasped doing some sort of strange chest pump with his face all scrunched up. I was slightly puzzled so I asked him what he was doing. With a straight face he replied, "I am just releasing some tension." It has become a running joke that when we are nervous we scrunch up our faces and do the "chest pump."
As of July 20th, we have been on a seven-match losing streak. When you haven't won in a while, you become desperate. You start to pray for every point. We relish every first serve missed by the opposing team. As soon as Coach sees a second serve he will sometimes say, "Give us a double," and my jazz fingers will commence while everyone else is rubbing their knuckles together in hopes of evoking the double fault God. I will tell you, it hasn't worked that many times.
Despite all of us laying it on the line night after night, we are still 3-7. None of us know how it happened and the thought of it makes us sick to our stomachs. As I said in the last blog - the biggest growth comes from the losses. It's time to see what we are made of.
Until next time...
Megan