As Mel Allen often said, “How a-bout that.” http://youtu.be/re7O5q3xuTg. No, not in TWIB notes, this reference is to the Philadelphia Area Tennis District (PATD) championships. This post is the coverage of this event that you may have missed on ESPN. July 15 – July 17 was Districts weekend for 3.5 and 4.5 women and 3.5, 4.0 and 4.5 men. The matches were held at Frosty Hollow in Levittown, PA and at William Tennet High School in Warminster, PA. I work as a league coordinator in the PATD and this weekend Sally Baird, the director of Competitive Tennis for Middle States and my fellow coordinator Dave Tolbert and I
ran the two sites. Having run these events for many years there have been upsets, boring weekends, ultra hot conditions, rain and sometimes just plenty of excitement. This weekend was certainly the latter.
In a nutshell, One Love from Exton, PA captured the 3.5 women’s title by winning 5 matches over the weekend, at Mens 4.0, Haverford captained by Herman Gluck advanced over a mighty strong Kinetix team, at women’s 4.5, Upper Dublin came back from a loss Friday to advance in dramatic fashion on Sunday for the 4.5 women’s championship and last but not least, Chris Kyper’s 4.5 men’s team (Dragons) stunned the perennial powerhouse Kinetix/Ambler. All of the winners advance to Sectionals in Princeton August 19th – 21st to represent the PATD for a shot at Nationals.
The 3.5 women may have the toughest road to travel to advance to Sectionals. This is because there are more 3.5 women than at any other gender / level so the talent can get diluted with so many teams. First, you have to win your flight and that means going 10-0 for the right to play at Districts. Then, you have to win Districts which means winning a five team round robin for the chance to play the winner of the other 5 team round robin for the opportunity to get to Sectionals. Most levels have 2-4 flights and the 3.5 women have 10 flights! Then, you have to get your players out during a Summer weekend and hope that you can execute without the wheels falling off the bus – not easy!
A side note, on Saturday, I ran the William Tennet High School site which had all 3.5 women playing that day except for one 4.0 men’s match. The most notable event of the day was the match between Kathy Stevens and Jessie Deming. This was the 1st singles match in the Ft Washington Force vs. Riversiders match. I put Jessie and Kathy on court at 9:35am. I always like to get singles going first because these matches can take the longest to complete and it’s important to be efficient as a tournament director so that people can come to the site and play their match without spending all day in the sun waiting to play. But so much for that…. One spectator pointed out to me at 11am that the score was 3-2 in the first set for the Stevens/Deming match. I didn’t believe her as it had to be a 2nd set score after that amount of time. The format for districts is the best of 3 sets with a mandatory 3rd set tiebreaker (first to 10, win by 2) in the event that the competitors split sets. I watched this match for a while and both players had the same strategy, lob the ball deep in the middle of the court. Both players were in good shape and very consistent. They did not come to net and they didn’t hit overheads. At 3 hours and then 4 hours we were all in disbelief. The Riversiders’ (Kathy Steven’s team) had their 2nd match of the day scheduled for 1pm and since they only had the minimum number of players available on Saturday they had Kathy in their 2nd lineup too. When courts were available the Riversiders team took to the courts and all of them finished their 2nd match of the day with Kathy and Jessie still playing on. At 5 ½ hours they finally split sets, 7-6, 6-7 and took their only off-court break, a 5 minute bathroom break and then they resumed play. After 6 hours and 37 minutes they completed their match 12-10 in the match tiebreaker coming off court at 4:07pm. John Isner and Nicolas Mahut called them as they walked off court congratulating them.
In the Sunday 3.5 women finals, One Love from Exton, PA captained by Lynne May made the strategic move of the weekend by inverting their doubles lineup for the first time all weekend and they notched two great 3rd set tiebreaker wins on 2nd doubles and 3rd doubles. This coupled with splitting singles earned them the right to advance to Sectionals. Well done ladies and good luck at Sectionals.
The 4.0 men’s flight was an amazing weekend of tennis as well. There are 4 flights and thus 4 flight winners competing in a 4 team round robin with the best cumulative record advancing. IMHO, Kinetix was by far the strongest, Bucks the 2nd best, Haverford 3rd and Team Fierce a new team rounded out the group. The format was one match per day – Friday, Saturday and Sunday. On Friday, a depleted Kinetix team faced Haverford. Friday is a work day and it’s Summer so people have vacation plans and work that often conflict with tennis. This bug bit Kinetix on Friday and it cost them. They had their guys for the weekend but not on Friday. But even without their absolute best, they played to win it. They rolled out a decent doubles lineup and had their singles ace Dave Richards at #1 singles. The way it went down was Kelvin Luk and Howard Zwick for Haverford gutting out a nice win at 2nd doubles and then Haverford swept both singles courts which included Chris Jones beating Dave Richards.
Dave Richards is an up and coming superstar and if you bang with him at this level – ah, well, rabbit – you lose. Chris didn’t bang or anything close to it. He hits a hard slice almost always to the backhand side that barely bounces yet Dave still managed to hit Chris off the court 6-1 in the first set. Then, I rubbed my eyes in disbelief watching the 2nd set as Dave Richards started to dink and dunk right back at Chris. Dave Richards lost to Chris in the match tiebreaker 10-8 for the shocker of the weekend. On paper Chris loses but he gutted it out, played smart and never gave up – it gave me chills. I asked Chris shortly after the match how he did it and he said, “I frustrated the heck out of him.” Dave Richards will surely do well at 4.5 and beyond as he’s the real deal – but this weekend was it was Chris Jones’s time to shine.
On Saturday, Haverford faced a Bucks County RC team who didn’t have their best all weekend. Haverford won 3-2 by the skin of their chinny chin chins and I feel for Bucks captain Tom Buker who simply didn’t have some key players. Tom is great guy and he always has good teams but without your best at Districts it’s hard. Haverford won 2 doubles courts and Chris Jones won again at 1st singles and that was enough. Kinetix meanwhile whooped up on Team Fierce 5-0 as they had an improved lineup.
On Sunday, Haverford faced Team Fierce who had won 1 individual court all weekend. Kinetix and Bucks fought hard but Kinetix won 4-1 coming out on top in a couple of match tiebreakers. I have to say I like the passionate play on this team and watching their 1st doubles duo of Dan Healy and David Horn play made me think I was watching 4.5. They communicated after every point, used hand signals, hit aggressive 2nd serves – what a super doubles team.
Haverford struggled Sunday, they had a chance at 1st dubs but couldn’t pull it out, they lost 2nd singles but pulled out nice wins at 2nd and 3rd doubles to tie the match 2-2. But again, Chris Jones gave them another victory and this one sent them to Sectionals. A few things, Haverford won the minimum number of courts to advance. That’s all 3-2 wins. Chris used his unorthodox style to go 3-0 on the weekend supplying Haverford with 3 of their 9 wins. Kinetix came in 2nd and had 11individual wins. Herman Gluck, Haverford’s super captain and a neat guy correctly stated, “we got lucky.” This is Herman’s first trip to Sectionals in about 20 years and he deserves the success – AWESOME JOB HAVERFORD TEAM!!! Scott Paveletz, Jim Haglund, Bobi Froloshki and Bert Useche also made key contributions.
For the 4.5 women, the favorite to advance in my mind was Upper Dublin but with that said, Garnet Valley and Net Surfers sure were tough. Pennsbury was the 4th team in the 4 team round robin but they didn’t have their players. UD lost their first match 2-3 but hung in there, won 4-1 on Saturday and 4-1 Sunday and got help from the Net Surfers when Diana Felker and Kate Corr won their court in a thrilling 3rd set tiebreaker with giving Garnet Valley their only loss of the weekend 2-3. My favorite part was Diana Felker’s son cheering with such vigor after big points, “C’mon Mom!” Good stuff. This match leveled the field with each team having one loss and it sent UD to Sectionals on the individual wins tiebreaker as they won one more court than the Net Surfers and Garnet Valley.
Finally, the new mayor of 4.5 men’s tennis, Chris Kyper showed that he is indeed in charge. The 4.5 men play a single elimination format because there are only 2 flights. The 1st place team of the 2 flights plays the 2nd place team in the other flight. On Saturday, Kyper’s Dragons beat Awbury 4-1 and Chris used almost the exact same lineup again on Sunday. On the other hand, Kinetix/Ambler, the 800# gorilla of 4.5 men’s tennis in the PATD for many years won 4-1 over the Justice League and then Kinetix/Ambler used 5 new players for the finals. Sheese – I sure wish I had that kind of depth on my team! After the Dragons went down 0-2 in the team match, John Ellis (who is the best 4.5 in the area – as I’ve said previously) won his singles match against Adam Sher. Then Jimmy Yen and Ricardo Martins beat Chris Carosella and Ryan Collins for the 2nd team win and Jared Howat and Scott Melideo played amazing tennis serving HUGE and knocked off the extremely talented duo of Joe Ferry and Leo Barbosa. Unbelievable – I asked Chris how he set his doubles lineup – the answer (I should have guessed) – the randomizer. Congrats guys – great job. My final words are however, look out for Chris’s Delaware team…
