My Morning Coffee & Tennis Quest
Woke up today craving some local tennis action since San Diego weather’s perfect for outdoor sports. Grabbed my laptop and coffee, thinking this would be easy-peasy. Just type “San Diego tennis tournaments” into Google expecting a nice calendar page to pop up.
First roadblock hit me fast:
- Tournament sites looked ancient – found schedules from like 2 years ago
- City rec page showed pickleball mixed with tennis events, total mess
- Some club pages required creating accounts just to see dates
Felt like chasing squirrels trying to pin down legit info. Remembered that Barnes Tennis Center usually hosts good stuff. Called their front desk but got voicemail saying “check our social media.” Scrolled their Instagram – last post showed Christmas decorations from 2022. Dead end.
Making My Own Damn Schedule
Took matters into my own hands around noon. Made a spreadsheet and started cross-checking everything:
- Checked USTA Southern California’s PDF dump – found 3 tournaments but dates conflicted with venue websites
- Phoned Balboa Tennis Club directly – nice lady rattled off dates but warned “subject to change”
- Dug through Twitter hashtags where actual players post updates – saw new North County tourney not listed anywhere official
After three coffee refills and my eyeballs burning from screen time, finally pieced together August/September events. Double-checked by texting my tennis buddy who coaches high school kids – he confirmed most dates but laughed saying “Good luck with parking fees at La Jolla events.”
What Actually Works (Sorta)
Here’s the sad truth – keeping updated means doing homework weekly. My system now:
- Bookmarked USTA SoCal’s chaotic event page even though it loads slower than dial-up
- Followed 4 local tennis coaches on Twitter who blast last-minute changes
- Set Google alerts for “San Diego tennis” which mostly spams me with high school scores
Whole process took 4 hours today. Could’ve played actual tennis in that time! Moral of the story? Tournament schedules here change more than surf conditions. Gotta stay flexible and verify twice before buying tickets.
