Easy Dover or just plain Dover advanced Sunday to Sectionals August 28th – 30th at Princeton out of the Delaware District with a 4-1 victory over the 12-1 regular season 1st place team Strokes on Saturday and a 3-2 win over the 11-2, 2nd place team Brandywine on Sunday. 40% of the lineup came from our PATD Easy Killer Team (Canh Ho, Ron Rubenstein and me). Dover is captained by Paul Bradbury who took the team to Sectionals last year and finished in 2nd place after EPD was DQ’ed sending CPD to Nationals. Way to go Paul!
This was a real team win. On Saturday, the Philly contingent notched 2 individual wins to propel Dover into the final. On Sunday, the Delaware contingent carried the day highlighted by Bruce Burcat and Mark Davis’s 10-8 victory in the match tiebreaker with the team match even at 2-2. The match was all square at 8-8 in the super tiebreaker. It came down to a very high lob that hit the baseline on our end. Both Mark and Bruce were back but right next to each other. Bruce hit the lob going away as Mark was too close. His shot was deep but headed wide down the right baseline. The strong wind blew the ball a few feet left and it stayed in. After another deep lob and subsequent return, the point continued on back and forth until our opponents finally hit the ball wide. This was for Sectionals and it could not have been closer. We won the next point – phew!
The Dover team is very talented and I think we have as good a chance as any to advance – especially with the wealth of post season experience on the team. And speaking of incredible play, hats off to Kirill Babak as he is playing with confidence and focus. Also, I never thought I’d say this but, I have to get John Sell to teach me that forehand return of serve…
First up at Sectionals? That would be the PATD winner Great Valley. Hmmm, I think I know some of these guys. They claim to have these ho hum records in the post season – but we’ll see how things turn out. A pair that went undefeated at Districts for Great Valley was Holger Mackenthun & Joe Virgulti and yet another is Rich Trach & Dave Umbach. These are all solid players and we’re looking forward to the challenge.
In my other role as PATD 3.5 women coordinator / Tournament Director for the Council Rock South site this year I saw some fun tennis. I had some of the 3.5 women and 4.0 men at my site and the impression it left me with can be summarized with one word – parity. All of the teams at all of the levels (including 4.5 men) have little separation amongst them. I think this is a strong endorsement for the USTA’s rating system and it’s leadership. Penn Oaks advanced to Sectionals for the 3.5 women but I have no doubt that the Volley Girls, Pennsbury or Springton Episcopo were all talented and mentally tough enough to represent Philly well at Sectionals. Well done to Penn Oaks captain and teaching pro extraordinaire Billy McElroy who is taking one of his teams to sectionals again – how do you do it?
