The Mixed doubles season is under way in the Philadelphia District. I have to say that over the past few years I’ve been envious of our neighboring districts (Delaware and Central PA) because they have 16 match seasons and our season last year only had 9 matches. The road to post season play in Philly is further complicated because the Philly districts has more players, which results in more teams and thus more flights meaning that you have to finish first in your flight to advance. You simply can’t have an off night and player availabilities often dictate who ends up advancing. In Delaware and Central, it’s one big flight and you have 
to finish in the top 4 to make post season play.
OK, I’ll hop off my soap box and say “great job” to Fenton Martin who runs all of Philly Mixed doubles. Fenton created a 12 match schedule for us this year and we get to play every team in our flight twice. Plus, in Philly we get to play the “best of 3 sets” format which is the only format that makes sense in my mind. Delaware went to no-ad scoring a year ago and this year it’s timed, no-ad. Central also went to timed matches and both Districts have a mandatory 3rd set tiebreaker. My opinion is that recreational players want to 
play tennis and when you have these new scoring formats and the occasional gamesmanship that goes with it, you enter another variable into who wins each match.
Our first match was scheduled for 11/11/11 which has to be a good sign. We had a warm-up court before the match to get ready and we played a set and worked up a good sweat. However, I was getting nervous because with 15 minutes to go before the match started, half of our team was not there. I was losing my practice set, losing my serve, a teammate looked to be injured and again, where’s the rest of my team? I started making contingency plans… just in case.
But that’s about it for the challenges. UMLY, captained by Jim Taylor defeated us last year which was a major setback to our postseason hopes. Everyone arrived in time and this year we rolled out two 4.5 men/3.5 woman combos and a 4.0/4.0 combo at 3rd doubles. UMLY inverted their lineup but it didn’t matter as we won all three courts by the same score, 6-0, 6-3. Welcome Joel Irwin to the team. Joel was awesome with Andrea Napoli. Welcome to Doreen Fulmer and thanks for carrying yours truly. Finally, Sue McNabb and Ed Daou were beasts! Well done guys.
Certainly I’m not getting excited at this point but it’s a good start. The Funsters and Springton K-O 
are looking to make waves this year and both easily could end up the flight winner. The Pirates are the defending champs and they have a strong team as usual. Up next we get the Pirates 11/19 @ 7pm at Tennis Addiction so we’ll have a difficult early test. Despite the tough road ahead of us, every other year this team has advanced to Nationals. We did it in 2008, again in 2010, who knows if in 2012 we’ll be blessed again?
