Let’s play two tennis matches that is. Easy Killer won twice this past weekend topping the Drunken Fools both times. Our first match was our regularly scheduled 6/6/09 match at the Fool’s home courts – Phoenixville High School.
Here’s a little history about the local tennis in Phoenixville, PA. The Phoenixville High School (PHS) tennis team coached by the legendary Leo Scoda (the current 3rd term Mayor of Phoenixville) and PHS team is 196-0 since 1987 during regular season matches. We have four PHS alumni on our team: Brandon Dinh who played #1 1987-1990, Canh Ho who played #1 in 1994-1997, Mitch Reading who played #2 2003-2004 and Tom McAvoy who played #2 and #3 in 2003-2006. Our opponents also played two PHS alumni against us, Ben Potts who played #1 2003-2005 and Wanzell (Wonzie) Flemming who played #1 dubs in 2003-2006. Our guys were pumped to play on their home courts and as Mitch Reading said at practice on Tuesday, “we don’t lose on our home courts. “
Tradition held and we took all 5 courts for the first time this season. Some say it was the intense focus and determination from practice last week. Perhaps it was Coach Scoda’s presence that made all the difference. In 2001, Mr. Scoda was named National High School Tennis Coach of the Year, and was inducted into the Middle States Tennis Association Hall of Fame. Mr. Scoda is a man who teaches us all about life and of giving back to one’s community. And then there are still others who seem to think it was Mitch’s girlfriend Erika who attended our match for the first time this year and brought us good luck.
I will briefly recap the matches but do any of you remember the old days when the Aces (now the Drunken Fools) Greg Snoberger, Joe Benford and Bernie Prazenica used to lace it up and play Saturday mornings?
At singles, Canh Ho topped Ben Potts and Mitch Reading ousted Wonzie Flemming in straight sets.
At #1 doubles, Eric Markowitz teamed with TomMcAvoy for the 2nd time in 3 years. The chemistry is starting to show as the beat Lonnie Cooper and Mike Ruhl in straight sets – a very impressive result.
At #2 doubles, Joe Sassa and Ed Daou won in 3 sets over Geoff Chan and Subba Kumpatla in a long hard fought match. Nice playing on both sides, some real nice points.
At #3 doubles, Ron Rubenstein and I split sets with Joe Dixon and Jeff Horwitz before getting into our groove and winning the 3rd set.
On Sunday morning we made up the rain out we had at our home courts for what was supposed to be our second match of the year. We won the match 4-1 to wrap up a successful weekend. This was a fun match. I hemmed and hawed about including this next part. I decided to include it, then exclude it and then to go ahead and write about it because I can’t make this stuff up.
Both teams warmed up by themselves Sunday morning. We overheard our opponents individual claims about being faster and quicker and wouldn’t you know it, a 40 yard dash broke out when two of our opponents tore off racing each other. We didn’t pay much attention to it at the time.
At #1 singles, Mitch Reading was paired against a surprisingly game Lonnie Cooper. Lonnie is an ace at doubles and his partnership with Mike Ruhl is just about as tough as it gets at the 4.0 level. I’m assuming Mike wasn’t available for the Sunday match so Lonnie showed that he can play great singles too. We have all long thought that Mitch would evolve into one of our killer singles guys and for the most part he has. He hasn’t faced the ferocious competition at Districts yet but he has done well in the opportunities he’s been given. Mitch and Lonnie played well over 90 minutes to a 5-5 tie in the first set before things started to go Lonnie’s way. Lonnie won 5&2 for a solid win.
At #2, Canh Ho played Don Johnson. Canh won – sorry Don. We really expected to see Shawn Minnier in this match. Shawn is the Fools regular #1 singles guy and a very smart player who notched a key victory against us last year.
At #1 dubs, Mel Navea and Tom McAvoy won what seemed to be a very competitive match 4&3 over Brian Schweitzer and Wonzie Flemming. I saw a lot of long points and had no idea who had won until I heard the score. Nice playing guys.
At #2 dubs, Eric Markowitz and Tom Faith teamed up for the first time in a long while. And, truth be told, they didn’t look that good. They faced Jeff Horwitz and Geoff Chan. Jeff is more of a singles player but I like his style at doubles because he absolutely goes for certain shots, occasionally. Geoff Chan is a smart and steady player and every time I looked over I saw long points, lots of touch shots and several winning points for our competition. We won 1&3 – go figure?
At #3 dubs, Ron Rubenstein and I faced off against Joe Dixon and Kevin Pattinson. This was clearly their #1 team and I have great respect for both Joe and Kevin. Ron and I welcomed the tough test and played well. We were up 5-1 in the first set when I hit a lob over Joe’s head. Joe never reacted and I started to grimace anticipating an “out” call for a ball I thought would surely drop in. The ball did drop in, it was called good, we won the set 6-1 and Joe retired. He pulled a hamstring in the sprint before the match. So sorry to hear that gents – this would have been a good fight. Hope you heal fast.
On a side note, in my role as a league coordinator, I received a grievance for a participant in a woman’s match for bad language. One of the players in the match wrote in the complaint that their opponents said that they “F-ed up the score.” I’m all for good sportsmanship but if that person that was offended by this, she would have turned pale and fainted if she was in attendance at our match! In fact, I’m quite sure that she would have learned a few new words especially after one the players we faced got broke after being up 40-0 in a critical game. I’d call it a 60 second tirade – quite impressive actually.
Our next match is Saturday, June 13th vs. the West Chester Aces. We owe these guys one.
Our picnic this year will be June 27th at the casa del Faith estate in Wayne, PA. Start time is 3:30pm – please let me know if you can make it so we can plan the logistics (a.k.a. beer).
