I play on a female 2.5 team. We are all beginners and getting better! There are only 4 of us, so we have to forfeit a court each time. Here's the breakdown:

Let's say I'm player A: I'm the strongest player, and I'm a decent 2.5. I certainly have my weaknesses, but I have good court coverage, and I'm usually I'm pretty quick. I used to be a runner. I hit pretty good balls. I don't miss a lot, and my serves are getting better. I can rally the ball fine hit some topspin, as well as go for some good offensive shots. I absolutely suck at the net. For a 2.5, people usually tell me I play well. I think I could play most 3.0s and hold my own.

Player B: It the ball comes to her, she can get it back very well and rarely misses. She's a good net player. Her weakness is that she can't really move, so if someone hits the ball away from her immediate area, she cannot get to it.

Player C: In my opinion, is someone who has come a really long way. Her strokes are good, and she's consistent as long as balls don't come at her too quickly. She can keep the ball in play for the most part. She has good court coverage. In my opinion, she's the 2nd best player on the team.

Player D: Very new to tennis (as we all are at some point). Misses most easy shots and double faults quite a bit. Sometimes can keep a ball in play for a couple of shots, but will miss after that. Court coverage is not as good as player C. She will get better in time, but generally speaking, whoever is paired to play with her either must absolutely dominate (as in, play a singles court on our side for a lot of the points) or lose the match.

Our captain (player B) pairs me with Player D EVERY TIME. Depending on how our opponents play, sometimes I try to dominate and take most of the shots. Sometimes that works, and sometimes it does not. The opponents either hit the ball to her and she misses, or she'll jump in the rally an then miss. They purposely try to keep the ball from me as much as possible.

I do NOT MIND playing with player D, but I think it's unfair I have to play with her every time. We have lost every doubles match this season. We did win some together last season. This week, I was going to be paired with player C because we had some conflicts, but the conflicts resolved, and when we all 4 showed up tonight, I was told I would now be playing with player D again. I said we need to switch up the lineup and we need to all play with each other. She said, "we need more people", which is true, but until we get more people, we still should play with each other. We lost the match tonight, 4-6, 2-6, 0-1 (8-10). When the final match tiebreak score was 8-9, my partner received serve, and did not even move to return it.

I promise I'm not a sore loser, but I played the entire winter and also now spring season with the same partner. It's making want to put my foot down and say, either change the lineup or I'm not playing. I noticed today that my attitude was not the greatest after the match. We normally chit chat a little, but tonight I just said goodnight to everybody and left. I didn't really have anything to say. One more thing...the last thing I want to do is make Player D feel bad. The 4 of us are friends, but our discussion about lineups tonight was public, so everyone heard it.

Thanks for reading. Would love advice/suggestions.