So you want to captain a Men’s 4.5 team? It’s so easy anybody can do it. Your players get right back to you and respond to every call, email and text… Scheduling is a breeze and the other captains are so helpful. And the competition, nah, weak – such easy matches you can hardly lose if you try. As a captain of a Philly 4.5 team (and a member of Chris’s DE team), my response to this would be, “yeah right.” “Easy matches?” – not so much…
This weekend capped an amazing trifecta by Chris Kyper. At Men’s 4.5, Chris captains a Philadelphia District team (PATD) and his team
won districts two weeks ago and advanced to Sectionals August 19-21. This past weekend, the Delaware District (DD) team that Chris captains won Delaware Districts and also advanced to Sectionals. And, last but not least, Chris’s Central PA (CPD) won a thrilling District final match on Sunday and they too advanced to Sectionals. Chris is not the captain of the CPD team but he is a factor in the common players on all the teams (PATD, DD and CPD).
This feat may have never been done before and will not be easy to duplicate. Advancing in a finals match leaves the door open to the tennis Gods who allow every team to win 
or lose on any given day. Case in point, Delaware elected to be cautious with the 90 degree weather Saturday, 7/30 and played no-ad scoring. This must be a reaction to the blistering heat of the previous weekend and with the shortened format, it served as an equalizer.
So congratulations Chris!! And, to the Philly team (Dragons), the Delaware team (Snipers) and to his Central team captained by Matt Heisel! Well done.
I’m guessing that the few souls who read my previous post on Chris being the new mayor of tennis thought I was kidding. The question now that Chris is intimately involved
with 3 of the 6 teams at Sectionals is of course; will one of those teams advance to Nationals in Tucson, AZ? Personally, I think so – but that opinion is worth what you paid for it. You have to win it on court and that’s not easy. To anyone concerned about anything relating to this most unusual run of success – you need not be. Chris is a competitive guy, all the teams and all the players on the teams want to win. It’s not easy to get where these teams have got to and anything distracting takes away from the enormous amount of credit they deserve for going out and practicing regularly, preparing well and executing great tennis on court. Amazing!!
August 1, 2011 at 9:57 pm |
This is awesome Russell!!
Yes, all teams are very excited and want to win at Princeton. It should be a very interesting weekend for these teams being that they know each other so well. The Philly and DE teams often have practiced together. On both of my teams (and on the Central team) we are loaded with guys that are passionate about the game and the competition but also have a good sense of fun and professionalism. The networking that has been accomplished is really impressive. My four common guys Jared, John, Nick, and myself were all very committed to making both teams as strong as possible. All had a major hand in recruiting and team chemistry and all are very strong players themselves. It makes it easy when you got 4 guys that you can build around!! And we were all 100% committed to getting all of our teams to Princeton, even though we knew that if we were “thrice blessed” it meant having to pick just one to play for at sectionals. But we would still feel good about the accomplishment and helping our teammates have the opportunity at playing in a USTA sectionals event at the 4.5 level and we will be thriilled if any one of our teams goes to Tuscon.
IN addition to great talent we also have great leaders (including yourself) and numerous guys with captain experience on our teams. I put forth a lot of effort but was not the only one.
What a great story. Can’t wait for these teams to battle it out at sectionals! Should be an awesome weekend.
Kype
August 2, 2011 at 8:38 am |
Kype, you’re somwhat sick. Good luck at Princeton brotha!