F the USTA

Dear USTA:

I would start out this letter by simply saying, "You suck!" but you probably already know that, so I won't. I would just like to let you know a few things about tennis.

Some people just want to go to the park and play tennis. Some people don't have enough money to pay 40 dollars for a one-year membership to your shitty organization, and surely do not want to part with their hard-earned scranch just for the right to have a piece of shit membership card that says so. Furthermore, your league system sucks, and I think you have some wacked out priorities about the sport in general. Is your goal to promote the sport or to make money? Hmmmmmm...me thinks it's the second one. No one goes through the USTA to do anything unless they live in a big city, and here in Colorado, when someone utters the forbidden phrase "CTA," they are usually met with a sideways glance and a hard snicker. USTA, you are a disgusting tool.

In case you were wondering, USTA, what this rant is all about...I will tell you. The other day, I tried to sign up for a men's 4.5 league that will start playing in May and go through the summer. I had to "self-rate" myself, because in your infinite wisdom, everyone must have a designated skill level. I was halfway through your little self-rating program when I started to realize that I must have mis-read one of the questions, and since there is no way to go back and re-answer a question, I decided to close the window and start over. Then your program locked me out and rated me as a 6.0! What the fuck! In case you have forgotten, POSUSTA, your system ranks players from 1.0 (what is this thing called a racquet!?) all the way up to 7.0 (OMG it feels great to win Wimbledon again!). Most people are in the 3.0 to 4.0 ranks, and playing in a 4.5 league stands as a pretty respectable degree of ability. But 6.0!? What? You bastards. Now I have to appeal my ranking at send it to your office and let your degenerates decide that I am, in fact, not a professional tennis player, but am instead a mildly talented human being.

USTA, in case you didn't notice, I hate you.

Sincerely,

Jamison Parker
(and the real person who wrote this)

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Anyhow, there is some real news at the moment. The team is idle right now -- we had an invogorating five matches in four days over the past weekend, so we had a few days off and are enjoying the Easter weekend by doing absolutely nothing. It freaking snowed here today but will be 70 tomorrow...go figure. It's CO. Fuck it. We have a week of practice, two matches, a week of practice, and then the conference tournament. I hope we are all peaking at the right time.

This was a Davis Cup weekend, and it was solid action all around. The US won which was nice. JB played well, Roddick played well, the Bryan bros played well (in singles even too!), so it was a solid effort. Semis now.

I wanted to see the France-Russia singles matches so badly!! Safin is such a bad ass!! He was held out of the first singles rubbers but then comes back and saves the day. What a quote: "It was a pure accident," said Safin, who is 29-18 in the Davis Cup. "I have not been playing for a long time and won quite unexpectedly."

As has been the trend lately, I'm going to go back for another round of Ass Ranger with my homework before some Easter dinner. Stay calm today, and please don't send me any more text messages that say, "Happy Easter, He is risen!" If you do, you're going right up on the big board next to the USTA.