On Thanksgiving, we’re intended to express our gratitude for all our advantages and blessings. But what about the things that make our life tough or less enjoyable? When do we get a day to vent our feelings about the things we find annoying, irritating, odious, despicable, reprehensible or maybe just plain stupid -- you know, like needing to have exact change for a $2.50 (coins only, no less!) bus ride in New York City or tin cans that don’t allow the jelled cranberry sauce to just slide out easily?

So let’s take a moment to pause in our hectic daily lives at this time of appreciation, reflection and binge eating to ponder the things in tennis that truly tick us off.

• I’m not thankful for the player-guest box or close-ups of those in it whose credentials don’t say “coach.” In no other sport do parents and partners get so much air time. I don’t care how so-and-so’s mother or girlfriend is handling things. I’d rather they show me a potted plant.

• I love Hawkeye electronic line-calling technology, but I am not grateful for the three-challenge rule. It’s only a matter of time before someone loses a match on a bad or non-call because he or she is out of challenges. I say give them a half dozen per set. Nobody is going to want to look like an idiot by going 0-5 or 0-6 in challenges in a set, and if a few of those challenges do turn out to be correct, the player needs all the challenges he or she can get.

• I don’t have much use for Davis Cup reformers, although I’m all for the fifth-set tiebreaker (see below). This year’s Davis Cup tournament and final were testaments to the competition. Sure it would be nice if somehow the Davis Cup had evolved along the same lines as World Cup soccer. But it didn’t. What you saw is what we have, and what we have is pretty danged good.

• Tennis has any number of statistics that do little to enlighten us. Chief among them is the “first-serve points won” stat. You know who’s tied with a bunch of other guys in around 10th place that category, 12 percentage points lower than the leader? Rafael Nadal. And there is our friend Novak Djokovic, way down below Jeremy Chardy and Vasek Pospisil on that list. The leader: Ivo Karlovic (84 percent success rate for first serves, a hair better than Milos Raonic).

My math tells me that if a guy gets 50 percent of his serves in the box and he wins 80 percent of those points, he may be winning as few as eight out of 20 first-serve points, and that’s not winning him many matches. Most ATP-grade players have at least decent first serves or they wouldn’t be on the tour. Thus, the percentage of first serves you get into the right box is really the only meaningful first-serve stat.

• I’m not thankful for the deuce final sets still played at most Grand Slams and in Davis Cup. What’s so fascinating about watching two guys (or women) trying not to screw up and lose a service game? It’s too much like playing for a tie, and the end of those 12-10 or 16-14 in-the-fifth isn’t always exciting or climactic. By then, it’s often a relief. All tennis matches played to full length should end with a tiebreaker, especially now that John Isner and Nicolas Mahut slammed the record book shut for good with a fifth set score that will never be surpassed.

• I can’t help myself. Here we go again. How did the shrieking genie ever get out of the bottle? In the span of two or three decades, we’ve gone from accepting the grunt of effort as part of the game to tolerating all kinds of screaming, yelping and bellowing, even when the occasion is a drop shot. Legions of viewers watch WTA tennis with the “mute” button on the remote pressed -- or they simply flip channels. This is a fact.

• I’m disappointed that in the interest of a worthy goal -- protection from serious injury -- the injury-timeout rule is so flagrantly and frequently abused. These days, junior players routinely take time out for treatment when all they want to do is mess with an opponent’s head. Just ask them; they don’t even deny it. This is going the way of the grunting/shrieking scenario -- you just watch.

• On-court coaching in the WTA is an idea that has passed. We don’t really need to see and hear a parent or coach telling his kid to “get tough” or “hang in there” or “fight hard” in a variety of languages, do we?

• I am not thankful for fistic expressions. It could be Gael Monfils banging away at his heart like he’s just slain a dragon or Ana Ivanovic clutching her fist after hitting a winner at 15-all in the second game of a match.

Put away the fist, folks, and let’s all join hands and celebrate Thanksgiving.