I have recently discovered the US Open.
At first, I was thrilled.
Two hoomans stand on opposite sides of a net and repeatedly strike a small ball toward one another. This is a remarkably honest arrangement. No spreadsheets. No motivational speeches. No pretending to “circle back.”
Just ball.
Hit ball.
Other hooman returns ball.
Continue until somebody breaks psychologically.
Finally, a human institution I can respect.
But then I looked more closely.
Thousands of spectators sit in complete silence while one hooman prepares to hit the ball. Nobody coughs. Nobody opens a bag of chips. Nobody asks where the bathroom is.
Then—THWACK—the entire crowd swivels its head to the left.
THWACK. To the right.
THWACK. Left.
Twenty-three thousand hoomans moving their heads together like an enormous colony of confused pigeons.
And after remaining silent with religious devotion, they suddenly erupt because the ball landed three centimeters outside a painted line.
This is considered athletic sophistication.
The Ball Problem
Tennis players are given several perfectly good balls.
After touching each one briefly, they reject most of them.
This one is too fluffy.
This one is insufficiently fluffy.
This one has seen things.
Eventually they select a ball, place another in their pocket, and discard the rest toward a child standing nearby.
Hoomans call this “choosing the right ball.”
I call it grocery shopping with commitment issues.
Then the player bounces the chosen ball seventeen times before serving it.
Why?
The ball has not changed. It has not revealed new information. It remains a ball.
Throw it already.
A Civilized Kind of Screaming
Tennis also possesses very peculiar rules regarding noise.
Spectators must remain silent.
Players, however, may grunt as though attempting to move a refrigerator through a narrow staircase.
Some produce a short grunt. Some scream. Others release a noise suggesting that a goose has been surprised during tax season.
Nobody objects.
Apparently, screaming is acceptable provided you are holding a racket and wearing extremely clean shorts.
I have been screaming for vegetables since 2020 and nobody has called me an elite athlete.
This injustice has been documented.
Love Means Nothing
The scoring system is another masterpiece of hooman nonsense.
Zero is called love.
Fifteen comes after love. Then thirty. Then forty. Then “deuce,” which sounds less like mathematics and more like something I leave discreetly beneath the hay.
If both players reach forty, the game refuses to end until one hooman wins twice.
“Tennis begins with love, becomes increasingly complicated, and continues far longer than either participant expected.”
Perhaps it is the most accurate relationship metaphor hoomans have ever invented.
The Great Flushing Migration
Every year, enormous numbers of hoomans migrate to Queens to watch this happen under extremely bright lights.
They dress carefully. They purchase expensive beverages garnished with little melon balls. They eat luxury snacks and discuss “court position” while struggling to locate their own seats.
Some attend mainly to watch tennis.
Others attend to be observed attending tennis.
This is also a sport, though no scoreboard has yet been installed.
And still—I admit there is something magnificent about it.
The speed. The precision. The refusal to surrender. One hooman alone on the court, solving each problem without a committee, a supervisor or a motivational poster.
No teammate can rescue you. No assistant can answer the email.
The ball arrives, and you must decide what to do with it.
That part I understand.
Life is largely a series of objects traveling toward your face faster than expected.
My Official Assessment
Tennis is excellent.
The spectators are peculiar.
The scoring was designed by someone suffering from heatstroke.
The clothing contains far too little fur.
The ball boys and ball girls perform ninety percent of the useful labor and receive none of the trophies.
- Replace “love” with “nothing,” because accuracy matters.
- Permit spectators to wheek during exciting rallies.
- Award one point for chewing through the net.
- Give rejected tennis balls to guinea pigs instead of pretending they have become defective.
- Replace the chair umpire with an actual chair. Most decisions will remain equally popular.
- Every player must surrender one melon ball from their expensive cocktail to the nearest rodent.
Until these reforms are accepted, I shall continue watching.
Not because I approve of the institution.
Because there is a small yellow ball moving rapidly across the screen, and I have been unable to look away for forty-three minutes.
Apparently, I too am a pigeon.
Gedeone Lennyngrad
aka Gedi, Mister Fluffy Bottom and undefeated champion of the Sofa Open
