Cheaters Never Win...Except When They Do



When we submitted previous blog posts like Practice Being a Good Sport or Bad Characters Are Bad News, we deliberately avoided one of the most troublesome but also the most prevalent aspects of junior tennis: CHEATING.
:(

We may not have kids of our own, but we’re watching these kids grow up before our very eyes. Also, it must be said---We know this negative behavior is not limited to tennis (it appears in all sports) but tennis is what we see and we can only comment on what we see. So here goes!

A lot of top players seem to have a ‘Win At All Costs” mentality…but WHERE DOES IT COME FROM? Who is teaching these players this tactic? Or the better question: Who is accepting this tactic from these players? And the best question: Will these players go forward into their adult lives with this tendency to cheat?  We believe in the saying that “Cheaters Never Win” but it’s seriously tough to believe that when we see them win almost every day at junior tennis tournaments.

In the 5+ years that we’ve been involved in junior tennis, our cameras have seen that cheating has increased (and continues to increase) to almost unimaginable levels. We see it and we hear about it constantly from players and parents and others. The specific circumstances may change from tournament to tournament but we see it ALL THE TIME and we think it needs to stop. 

We’re not talking about close calls that could easily go one way or the other. We’re talking about deliberate cheating and we know that one or two bad calls during a match can drastically change the outcome of that match. Our cameras have seen the player who changes the score mid-match so he has the lead. But his opponent knows (and we know) that the new score is not accurate. We’ve seen the other player call for a line judge and we’ve seen what always happens: the line judge doesn’t have the authority to do anything other than to stay and monitor the match for a period of time and then he or she must move on to other matches. As soon as that line judge steps away, the original player reverts back to his cheating ways and continues to make line calls that are obviously bad. Finally, we’ve seen his opponent as his frustration grows and his spirit diminishes…and then the match ends. 

Cheaters never win…except when they do.
And we hate it when they do. We really do.

Finally, our cameras have seen sooooo much bad behavior on the tennis court and more than one parent has asked us when they should pull the player off the court for discipline. That is a good question but it’s most certainly outside the scope of anything we’re doing at any tournament.

Parents have even observed their child’s poor sportsmanship and asked us what they should do about it. We simply say that it’s a tricky area and we suggest that they consult with a sports psychologist or other specialist who can help with their specific situation.

Sometimes, It's Just UGLY
We think it is nauseating when parents know their children cheat and they do absolutely NOTHING about it. Our cameras have seen DISGUSTING behavior on the part of parents and it is overwhelmingly sad. We actually heard a mother repeatedly yelling “He might be a cheater but he’s MY cheater!” 

Equally ugly is the treatment that some players have to deal with after a tennis match. We really wish parents would stop and think before they berate or belittle or humiliate their children after a loss. The child is devastated enough by the loss and the last thing they need or deserve is to deal with comments such as this one:
“We spend too much !#%@&_#!% money on your training for you to turn around and play like that.”

We hear these comments and we can’t help but wonder:
What are these people thinking?!?

We can’t avoid the awful topic of players being physically abused by a parent after the match. I have never witnessed it personally, but I’ve heard about it more than once. In fact, I was recently informed by the concerned parent of another child that a certain father had punched his son as soon as they got into the parking lot and the child was now screaming inside a parked car. It was so upsetting but we couldn’t do a thing about it. Certainly we have never and will never look at that father in the same way again.

Our cameras have seen ugliness that we wouldn’t have believed possible, like the mother who shouted across two tennis courts to her son and told him to stop playing because the referee did not understand the rules correctly and was treating her son unfairly. Or the mother who chased down a female official and emphatically pointed at the official and then at her daughter’s court, as if to scream
“GET OVER THERE – AND I MEAN NOW!”

It made us just sick to our stomach when our cameras saw the father who got right in the tournament official’s face and accused him of racism (with no regard for young players standing nearby, watching and learning).

One more…We were flabbergasted when we saw an angry mother rudely demand that the tournament director take immediate action to correct the game penalty that cost her child a match. This woman was so clearly out of line and everyone knew it…However, we observed the same identical thing just one week later with a different parent at a different tournament in a different state.

What kind of adults will these players grow up to be? How will they conduct themselves when they’re faced with adult-size frustrations and adult-size difficulties?

Those are good questions, aren’t they? Unfortunately, we don’t have good answers. We don’t even have ANY answers. We can’t predict the future but what we can do is reflect on what we see and hopefully shine a light of awareness on this very unfortunate subject.

Sometimes things need to be said so that positive change can occur…or at least that’s our hope. Thank you for your support!

Junior tennis is a journey, not a destination…
You might as well enjoy it!