Cheating in tennis

by Julia
(California)

In a tennis lesson, we did a sort of round robin game where no matter what the skill level was we had to play everyone. I was set up to play against another player who did not play well at all but always wanted to make sure he won. It was a simple game where you just hit out of the hand and the first person to reach 11 points would win. Anyway, the opponent I played cheated so much that I was absolutely flabbergasted. Some examples would be......
1. We were supposed to start at baseline, he started 2 feet from the net, tapped the ball for a dropshot.
2. Calling obviously out shots in and saying any shots he hit out were in.
3. Changing the score(In his favor) and refusing to accept the correct one.
4. One of many severe examples - When we used up all the balls and I was picking some up, he actually grabbed one and hit it when I still was on the other side picking a tennis ball. SERIOUSLY. Then he said that counted because " I wasn't paying attention."
At the end, I still won, 11-8 but without the cheating it should have been 11-2.
I know this almost sounds as though I've made the story up but this really happened. It's very frustrating playing bad seeds like these people, but I didn't say anything because I had the wrong thought process of "Oh the coach is many courts over, too bothersome to get him over" or "I can beat this guy even with all his cheating." After the match he told me to pick up all the balls( even the ones on his side) and exited. I just snapped and called the coach over after that and explained everything. Lets just say I don't play with that guy again. Whats really low is that a few weeks later, he was bragging about "how he only lost by ONE point." Unbelievable. So just be careful about these people, because I know next time I'll make sure I don't make the same mistakes again.