i got blocked on playtomic.
Laura and I have played together a lot.
But for some reason there was a Saturday curse.
I don’t know what the universe was up to exactly, but there was definitely some very questionable juju surrounding Saturday matches.
What’s incredible about padel is the social dynamic it creates.
I’ve made so many friends through it already.
There’s quite a long list of people I’ve met and actually genuinely like, which for me is fairly rare.
My local club is brilliant for this too. There’s a welcoming atmosphere, a sense of community and a shared love of the sport.
It genuinely felt like I’d stumbled into a subculture made up entirely of lovely humans.
Until Anonymous showed up.
There was an atmosphere almost immediately.
Before the match, during a casual chat, I mentioned I’d played tennis previously and for whatever reason this information was received incredibly badly.
Then the calls started.
“Long.”
“Glass.”
“Wide.”
Righttttttt okay then.
Look, we all make mistakes. I’m sure I’ve made incorrect calls before.
But deliberately?
Absolutely not.
Then came the scoring issues.
Now if there’s one thing I can bring to a padel court, it’s tennis maths.
The score can only be called from one side. Once your brain clicks into it, it becomes second nature.
Anonymous, however, was not enjoying this system whatsoever.
“30-15.”
“No, sorry, it’s 30-30.”
“Ah, okay. So it must be 40-0 then.”
“No, because that would be from the other side.”
“So is it game?”
“No. It’s still 30-30.”
We all lose track of the score occasionally, but this felt different.
Then everyone had served twice.
Four players.
Two service games each.
Eight games total.
“We’re leading 4-3.”
“No, it’s 4-all.”
“I don’t get what you mean.”
“Well… four plus three is seven and there’s been eight games.”
“Oh. So we must have won the set then.”
No.
Still 4-all.
At this point absolutely nothing was passing the vibe check.
Then came the line call.
My serve.
Ball clearly touches the line.
“Out.”
I said it touched the line.
“Yeah it did, but the other side of the line.”
WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE OTHER SIDE OF THE LINE.
At this point I am fully fed up.
Honestly, if you want to play like this then fine, but simply do not play with me because I cannot cope.
Things got slightly heated.
“You’re telling me if the ball touches the far side of the line it’s in? Nonsense.”
“Yes. That is exactly what I’m telling you.”
One percent of the ball touching one percent of the line means the ball is in.
Same in tennis.
“WELL WE’RE NOT PLAYING TENNIS.”
I am not a confrontational person at all.
Confrontation makes me want to immediately disappear into the floor.
But equally, I am not playing a match like this.
Laura, bless her, could sense my frustration building and started casually trying to ask me about my weekend as a distraction technique.
I just needed the match to end.
Then came my moment.
High ball at the net.
Not a chance I’m missing this.
I went all in. Full commitment. My old tennis kick serve energy briefly coming out of retirement to produce what can only be described as a textbook overhead smash.
It was glorious.
“Glass.”
No.
No no no.
Absolutely not.
I pointed - which is wildly out of character for me - and said to this fully grown woman:
“No. You will not do that.”
We wrapped up shortly afterwards and despite the court being booked for ninety minutes, they left after sixty.
Laura and I stayed behind playing cross-court while debriefing the entire experience with repeated variations of:
“Can you actually believe that?”
Still annoyed later that evening, I sent a screenshot of the rules into the Playtomic group chat with the incredibly passive aggressive caption:
“just so you know for next time :)”
Petty?
Possibly.
Worth it?
Definitely.
Then suddenly, a grey avatar appeared.
The player name disappeared.
From that moment onwards, they became known only as Anonymous.
And that is the story of how I got blocked on Playtomic x