Tennis Tournaments: Difference between revisions

Ultimately though, the readiness of the community at the time to fully and truly embrace this philosophy was either slow, scattershot or questionable at best largely due to the social competitive nature of the rest of YouChew itself. 2009 in particular is seen as an era where the constituency for "simple, classic" tennis competed directly with the "complex, effect-based" constituency for attention across multiple tournaments that took place that year, though it was almost always done out of a positive, good-natured spirit. The [[Windows Movie Master]], [[Tennis Season]] and [[Grey Tennis Tournament]] all saw matches played separately in both camps of style preference as well as matches with a player each representing either side becoming directly matched with each other, leading to exchanges of near diametric opposite approaches such as piodx vs. RAKninja(2009), GameBop vs. Emperor Ing(2009), and [[vvaluigi vs. MycroProcessor]](2009). Around this same time, complex and heavy editing began to very definitively take over the very nature of tennis itself, as players such as {{CorruptionSound}}, rapskallionxyz, Skrimpish, DanielRadcliffe777 and Sploltoen either entered into the community already steeped in this language of editing out the gate or began to truly become prominent as they took on many elements of this language of editing that became part of their signature. During this era, older players such as TangerineImpz continued to express grievances with "what tennis has become" in regards to their own disenchantment<ref>https://ftlfw.net/archives/websites/youchew.net/archive/forum/16-poop-tennis/57018-the-gray-tennis-tournament-champion-revealed/1</ref>. From late 2009 onward, a lot of these earlier generations of players would leave the game behind entirely.  

The turn of the 2010's now saw competitive "metas" for tennis fully setting in with regards to how the continued influx of players was now interpreting it; as a result of many older players withdrawing from the scene marking a decline in their school of thought around tennis, a sizeable portion of the community was coming to believe that a prowess with cutting edge and well-presented visual/audio effects and dense, intricate editing was the way that "good" tennis was played, at times regardless of how the previous round was used at all. The [[Grey Tennis Tournament]], [[3-Way Tennis Tournament]] and the [[Doubles Cup 2]] all saw their final matches make up players who advanced that far at least somewhat embodying this.  

The final match of the Grey Tennis Tournament([[piodx vs. GameBop]](2010)) and the final match of the Doubles Cup 2(dani_phantump + robochao1 vs. ChrisGendo + AshcrementVII(2012)) were instances where an important distinction around this approach prevailed in regards to both match's winners; it was not how well the previous round was edited by the winning player, but how the previous round was "used" in and of itself, in terms of the ideas created/responded to and the overall creativity of the responses themselves. Even through the gradually increasing misconceptions magnified through a competitive lens, enough players still existed in this era with a passion and a knowledge for tennis to know how to engage with it like they believed tennis should be and how they remembered it being played in years previous. As the tennis community entered into the 2010s, it was these older players who led the community and hosted subsequent tournaments, with {{ChrisGendo}}, {{AshcrementVII}}, and {{trepmaws}} being particularly prominent as figures of influence between 2010 and 2013. Under this collective of like minded players and staff members, a balance attempted to be struck with all styles being united in an exploration towards playing the best, most quality matches that could be played, which was explored throughout the [[Doubles Cup 2]], [[Tennis Cup 4]] and the [[Triples Tennis Tournament]]s. The Tennis Cup 4 saw a number of older, memorable players return for one last time, making for some of the more enduring matches of the tournament - its final match, CorruptionSound vs. GreatBritishTurd(2012), was made up of two players who either embodied or had come to embody a cohesive, creative and dynamic mixture of the modern editing tricks and the more classic, fun sensibility of responding to ideas in fun, humorous and especially inventive ways. Despite these high moments, the community continued to dwindle in size, as certain older players and others with simpler styles continued to withdraw feeling unable to match up to the competitiveness that seemed to fully exist and not stop growing with regards to the intensity of the complex editing sported by largely newer players.

 

 

<small>"...but let me take a moment to address something I find the most saddening and discouraging thing of all – whether or not a person feels like they are being shoved into a rapey, color soup style of tennis. Just the thought of me, or anyone else playing tennis or thinking of trying to play tennis, even THEORETICALLY feeling that way because I can’t make crazy shape constructions fly around predetermined courses in synch with one another and do “visual rape” style is both hysterically ludicrous and shockingly frightening. It almost presents the idea that, that’s all tennis is, just rapey color splooge hitting fans at 20 million miles per hour … or carefully constructed shapes moving around for god knows what reason. This aspect of tennis makes up such a small percentage of what tennis is supposed to be, it could almost be considered a footnote. Yet apparently, this is how tennis is perceived from newcomers and casual lookers. And that’s just upsetting."<ref>https://ftlfw.net/archives/websites/youchew.net/archive/forum/16-poop-tennis/110653-the-multi-way-tennis-tournament-winner-announced/6#post-4831342</ref>

 

 

This post started a significant discussion and acted as a wake-up call for the community, who were now becoming more aware of its diminished size as it became coalesced mostly around a small amount of regulars isolated from the greater world of YTP itself. It inspired a wave of motions made by {{dani_phantump}} and other members of the active staff at the time, {{TheChutley}} especially, to try to connect with the rest of the YTP community over tennis including discussions that were had and engaging them in simple matches. Soon after, this created the tournament of the [[Tennis League 4]], an event not structured around eliminiations that provided a platform for a handful of new or inexperienced voices to try their hand at competitive tennis in what aimed to be a low-stakes environment. This was furthered by the tournaments "silly, tomfoolery" nature perpetuated by both its organizers and particular new players of prominence. While it was initially successful - players more known in YTP proper such as ThemOldaBoys and NationOfOranges696 joined - multiple players the event was geared for ended up dropping out due to being almost immediately faced with players operating in heavy, complex editing styles such as GameBop, NataliaHTTPS and intergalacticdeathrape and seeming to become subsequently disillusioned that their preferred simpler methods of approach did not seem to be embraced in the ways they wanted. A few players from that world who had bigger imaginations though, including CheeChee, TheShadzify, ravinrabbid123, Nineroe, valkiriforce and Peskeh (the events winner) would end up sticking around as regulars in this era, infusing competitive tennis with the freshness and the inventiveness that it needed to sustain itself; many of the best matches played between 2014-2018 would feature them as participants.

 

The final years of YouChew saw its tennis tournaments sporting a relative renaissance in terms of the quality of matches that were played. The [[Match Voting Tournament]] allowed players to directly focus on the quality and the enjoyment of their matches entirely, while the [[Doubles Cup 3]] allowed for probably the purest, most seamless degree of collaboration ever showcased in a Doubles event, with some of the most showstopping Doubles matches ever played in terms of entertainment. For these years, it seemed like the way forward in terms of recapturing tennis at its essence and bringing it into the modern day was found again.