Unforced Error! What I Learned at the Miami Open

Mar 2018

Living in Miami has its share of advantages.

One of them is being able to attend professional tennis matches in the month of March while the rest of the country and a good part of the rest of the world are stuck in a deep freeze.

For those who do not live in a tropical climate, I apologize for rubbing it in. Sorry, not sorry.

Your unfortunate living arrangements aside, I had the pleasure of attending some matches at the Miami Open with some friends the other day.

Let me paint a picture of the setup for you. Better yet, let me show you what it looks like:

As you can see there are a bunch of tennis courts with multiple matches going on contemporaneously (you will have to excuse me, I ate a thesaurus for breakfast). It gives you the opportunity of wandering from match to match to check out whatever match you think may be interesting.

Between the courts there are numerous food and beverage vendors and tons of seating, so you can stop and grab a bite or enjoy a cold one. It really is an amazing setup in a “tropical paradise” (ah right, your cold and snowy situation – oops, my bad).

So, we arrived, walked around a bit, grabbed a beer and decided to venture into the stadium court to watch the match already in progress.

Once we got to our seats, I asked my friend if she had any Kleenex, so I could stop my nose bleed – just kidding – all the seats have great sightlines.

We looked up to the scoreboard to see who was playing and to catch up with the current score:

I apologize for the grainy picture, ‘clearly’ I need to apply some self-improvement strategies to my photography skills because they suck!

For those of you who cannot read it, it says the player’s names, which are:

Pierre-Hugues
Herbert

and

Taylor
Fritz

To which my friend asked: “Is it, Taylor Fritz or Fritz Taylor?”

“Hmmm,” I said to myself, I really had no idea. But I’m pretty clever (or so I think). So, I came up with a quick answer using a combination of deductive reasoning and half-assed French. I am Canadian remember, so I “studied” it in school.

“It’s Fritz Taylor” I confidently retorted.

My logic was to look at the other player’s name, figure out the order of his name then apply it to Fritz Taylor or Taylor Fritz.

“No French parents in their right mind would name their son Pierre-Hugues” I said to myself, his name is DEFINITELY Herbert Pierre-Hugues. Which would mean his opponent would be Fritz Taylor.

She replied, “Umm, I don’t think so, I think it’s Taylor Fritz”.

“Wanna bet?” I quickly asked, sensing an opportunity to capitalize on my friend’s obvious ignorance of the French language to convert it into a free beer.

“Okay,” she said.

I looked it up and just as I suspected it was…Taylor Fritz.

Wait, what?

“Must be Wikipedia” I said to myself, “what the hell do they know”. So, I checked another source…To my dismay, Wikipedia was not “Rickipedia” because I was WRONG! It was indeed Taylor Fritz.

Damn you, Mr. and Mrs. Herbert!

Fast forward to us standing in the outdoor concourse a few minutes later trying to decide which match to watch next.

My friend said: “How about the match on Court 1?”

So, I looked up to the massive scoreboard to see who was playing on Court 1, and the name of the first player was…Gilles Simon!

“You have got to be kidding me,” I said to myself in disbelief.

Mind you, I was still licking my wounds with my ego suspended in a semi-fragile state from the whole Taylor Fritz thing.

Not to mention the fact that my wallet had 10 bucks less than it did 5 minutes earlier due to the Stella Artois I had to cough up to my friend to make good on our ill-fated bet. And please, don’t even get me started about the fact that beers were 10 bucks a pop – which is what they charge at strip clubs, or “so I have heard”.

So, after all that, NOW you are telling me that the next match involves Gilles Simon (or is it Simon Gilles?).

Tell me something – is having 2 first names the prerequisite for being a professional tennis player these days?

Good grief!

I nervously scanned down to see who he was playing. It was an Aussie named Matthew Ebden.

“There’s no way any parents would name their kid ‘Ebden’, is there?” I asked myself.

I’m just glad I paid off my debt before my friend had a chance to say: ”double or nothing?”

Because my response would have been:

“Fool me once, shame on you.
‘Fool me twice, shame on moi”

The moral of today’s story is: be careful of the assumptions that you make and don’t let the overconfidence monster get the best of you!

Oh, before I go, I have a quick question:

Anyone wanna bet how many tennis balls are in this big round ball?

On second thought, never mind!

Use It or Lose It

There are no specific steps to make this post actionable other than being mindful of overconfidence and not being a cocky douchebag like I was.

When to Use ‘Being Mindful of Overconfidence’

When you don’t want to make an ass out of yourself like I did and don’t feel like eating a big piece of humble pie!

What Do You Think?

Do have any examples of how overconfidence made you look like an ass like me?

Until next time – always check your sources, leave your overconfidence at the door, be wary of friends who may be playing possum, and as always…PYMFP!
–Rick

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Unforced Error! What I Learned at the Miami Open

Use It or Lose It

When to Use ‘Being Mindful of Overconfidence’

What Do You Think?

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