And so it begins, our 2009 Men’s tennis adult season. We are enjoying the changing weather and have actually been able to play outdoors a little bit. We had a good start to the season on Saturday, April 25th and out beautiful new home courts at Rustin High School in West Chester, PA. We pulled out a victory 4-1 against Kinetix and we are now 1-0 in a six-team flight. We play everyone twice and only the winner of the flight will advance to Districts.
At 1st singles, our ace Canh Ho pulled a hammy and very cautiously finished the match. This is a classy thing to do instead of defaulting and we hope Canh will heal this week in time to play our match on Saturday against the Drunken Fools! Congrats to Jimmy Riggs, Canh’s opponent – I wish I could say I beat Canh in straight sets!
At #2 singles, Mitch Reading stepped up and won a nail biter 7-6 in the 3rd set. Way to go Mitch! Mitch was definitely thrown off by his opponent’s unorthodox style and hed almost did not come away with the victory. It was 6-2 Mitchy-poo in the tiebreaker at match point and fortunately Mitch was able to close it out for a nice win. The sky is the limit for Mitch and this is a good confidence builder to start the season.
At #1 doubles we played Tom Ramsay and newcomer Hap Phouthavongsa. They introduced themselves to each other and then won their match in 3 sets. Tom’s long time partner Bob Cohen, a.k.a. the Rodney Dangerfield or our team, got bumped up so we are experimenting with some new options, Their opponents were John Keefrider and Peangelo Miranda (wonder what his friends call him for short?) I have to say that John played very steady tennis and I didn’t see him miss a shot. Peangelo is a sensational player and we were fortunate to win this court. Well done guys and welcome Hap! Hap is a big hit already as he brought refreshments that we all enjoyed in the 90 degree weather after the match. Thanks Hap!
At #2 doubles, another recruit Ed Daou and long time veteran Tom “Killer” Faith smoked what I thought was our opponent’s best dubs team 3&1 – Wow! They played Dr. Dana Burkholder and Jim Vesci, Jr. Dana and Jim are solid and experienced so all I can say is well done. Welcome Ed and I’m sure our opponents had their fill of lefties for a while.
At 3rd doubles, Ron Rubenstein and myself won in straight sets. We played together some in the Winter and we had a modicum of chemistry for our first official match together – nice playing Ron!
We are 1-0 and play the Drunken Fools 5/11 at our home courts at 9am May 2nd. Great Valley beat the Fools so right away it’s clear that it’s us and GV (and the Fools if we don’t win in Saturday) in contention for Districts. The Fools are our favorite type of opponents – good tennis and the same after match philosophy as us. Life is too short – enjoy every moment.
The Englunds Main Line Tennis Classic is coming up next week – we have some of our team in this. This should be a fun event at the Great Valley Racquet club. And, just a note on our new name, the meaning is akin to “Lighten up Francis” – you remember, “and I don’t like anyone touching me, any of you homos put your meat hooks on me, and I’ll kill you…”
