K9 will represent the Philadelphia district for the 2009 9.0 Mixed Season. Congratulations!! It was a long and rocky road but the team persevered and came through with a tremendous win over a truly fantastic Kinetix squad. The “Kinetix” team went to Nationals in 2008 but only four of their players from that team were allowed to play on the 2009 squad. We were able to pick up three players from the 2008 Kinetix Nationals team: Gino Carosella, Kathi Rees and Mike Simonetti.
The problem was that Gino missed signing up for K9 by just hours. When the early start ratings were released Gino published at 4.5. When the year ends published he was 5.0 and because he played in the post season last year he was affected by the new rule that Benchmark (players who played in the post season the previous year) players are not eligible for appeals. Therefore, Gino had to compete this year as a 5.0. If Gino had signed up a day earlier we would have had the option of playing Gino and Kathi, a winning combination at Nationals from last year’s Kinetix Nationals squad.
K9 lost to Kinetix in our regular season match 1-2. Dejan (Dan) Blagovcanin teamed with Melinda Lee to defeat Lynn Dickson & Brian Zansitis but Dan suffered a season ending injury in this match. We also got a firsthand glimpse of the talent behind the partnership of Lindsay Brown & Simon Key. They are simply awesome and on this night they topped Kathi & Mike 4&1.
In the season continuance match towards the end of the season we lost again to Kinetix – this time 0-3. We played well enough against Lindsay & Simon to get it to a 3rd set but we still lost. We also encountered David Blumeris who I have to declare the most talented player in PATD playing 9.0 Mixed. He’s an unbelievably good tennis player.
This left us at 7-2 for the regular season. Clearly we had talent but getting our players out when we needed them was difficult – that’s where Lynn Dickson comes in. She is player/captain extraordinaire. Lynn has dealt with the trials and tribulations that come with the honor of running any USTA team – last second cancellations, unreasonable requests and the politics that come with our favorite pastime.
New this year, thanks to our coordinator Fenton Martin, was a district championship format. We decided on a single elimination format where the first place team in our flight plays the 4th place team (Kinetix vs. the Soul in this case) and the 2nd place team plays the 3rd place team (K9 vs. Kinetix 2) with the winners playing for Sectionals.
In the first round match at districts, our player Chris Lewis had a seizure after being up 2-0 in the set. I won’t go into much detail here because this is not the place for such serious things but suffice it to say, it was terrifying experience. Chris is fine now. I was not there because I was playing a USTA men’s match but it’s something I still think about daily. I am still struggling to come to terms with Chris’s partner’s reaction (Liz) as well as Lynn and Melinda Lee’s reaction. When you are right there, can’t do anything to help and you think you are losing a soul I can’t imagine how difficult that must have been. We are all so glad that Chris is fine and thank you as well to so many people that were there and did so much to help. Members from all four teams playing showed a high level of concern and compassion. For the most part, all of the matches under way were postponed.
We rescheduled the remainder of the match and since Chris Lewis had to retire we needed to win the other two courts to advance to the District finals. This came down to Lynn Dickson and Wasyl Manko needing to come back after dropping the first set to Chris Herdelin and Karen Brashear. Lynn and Wasyl came through with a 2-6, 6-2, 6-4 victory but it was a very hard fought battle.
The Districts final was played Friday night, June 5th at Kinetix. I witnessed the best USTA tennis I have ever seen. Every court was great to watch. I had a nervous feeling about the match and Wasyl and I agreed that we were fortunate to get exactly the matchups we desired to give ourselves a chance.
#1 Dubs: Kinetix wins- Lindsay Brown & Simon Key over Karin Ptaszek-Kochis & Anthony Dececco – 6-3, 7-6. This was a great match. Kinetix raced to a 5-0 lead in the first set before Karin & Anthony started to gel. Lindsay & Simon have played a lot more together than Karin & Anthony. We expect only great things from this pair as they get more experience together.
#2 Dubs: K9 wins – Lynn Dickson & Brian Zansitis over Diana Felker & David Blumeris - 6-3, 2-6, 7-6. This was a 4.5 combo on the K9 side vs. a 5.0/4.0 combination for Kinetix. David is the cat’s meow as I stated so this was a classic Mixed match where you focus on the weaker partner. This meant that much of the heavy lifting was on Diana’s shoulders and it was an amazing chess match. Well played on all sides – it could not have been any closer.
#3 Dubs: K9 wins – Liz Henkin & Gino Carosella over Melinda Lee & Sean McElroy – 3-6, 6-3, 6-3. I’m pretty sure Gino and Sean had just played together the day before and so did Melinda and Liz. No surprises on this court – we knew it would be a battle as the score indicates.
I’m not sure how many matches K9 would win if we played Kinetix a 100 times. I’d have to guess that it would be well less than half of the matches. We needed the right matchups, great play from everybody and the intangible “bounces” that we all need to win our matches. We are fortunate to come out on top this time and congratulations to Kinetix too – they are a super talented, fun and classy group of tennis enthusiasts.
Sectionals are June 19th – 21st in Landisville, PA. The winner advance to competes in the first ever truly national, Nationals in Las Vegas, NV November 20th-22nd. How sweet would this be? I know K9 has every chance to do well.
