This has to stop happening

OK, here we go again, our 3^rd match of the 2010 Mixed season was Friday, December 4^th @ 7:30pm at Tennis Addiction in Exton, PA.  We played Just for Fun, a new team captained by Dilip Rajagopalan who was 1-0 entering the match.  Our 1^st doubles team of Cathy Holskin & Canh Ho defeated Helena Malarkey & Ed Daou 5&1.  Ed has been steadily improving for some time now and he’s playing terrific tennis and Helena just got moved up to 4.5 so we did well to win this court.  Great job Cathy and welcome back Canh! 

At 2^nd dubs Dilip and Michelle Leonatti topped Sue McNabb and Ron Rubenstein 5&4.  I think this was Just for Fun’s best team and I was a little nervous about the matchup when we exchanged lineups but every time I looked over we won the individual point.  Oh well, a solid performance by Just for Fun.  So, again, my court was the deciding one and we were not playing our very best.  Any hope of navigating our team to one of the top two spots in the flight to qualify for post season play rested with my partner and I pulling out the W. 

3^rd  doubles was Jill Jacobs and Mike Weidinger vs. Eileen McKeogh and myself.  We started out the first set in shaky fashion.  We won the first game but lost the next 3 to go down 1-3.  We pulled ahead 5-4 for a chance to capture the first set.  Mike held to make it 5-5 and then I mishit back to back sitters at the net on Eileen’s serve for an 0-30 hole and we ended up getting broke to go down 5-6.  Then, of course, Jill served out the first set.  Wake up call for the Pork chops.

We started out a little better in the 2^nd set racing to a 4-0 lead.  But, (and why is there always a but) it’s never that easy.  We lost the next 2 games and then Eileen served a very long game and eventually we got the hold for a 5-2 lead.  We lost the next game at love and then I managed to serve it out the set for a 6-3 win but the message had been delivered by our opponents. They took 3 of the last 5 games of the set which set the tone for the 3^rd set meaning, no no no – you aren’t getting away that easy.

The third set started with the other 2 courts finishing.  Our opponents served first and there were no breaks.  We were down the entire set 0-1, 1-2, 2-3 etc.  At 5-5, 30-40 with Jill serving, Mike’s volley hit the top of the net and the ball barely trickled over.  I was at the service line and I hook slid right in front of the net and tapped the ball cleanly.  However, the ball caught the top of the tape and fell back on our side.  We lost the game and I left a lot of my DNA on the court.  Although I had a knee brace on I still have a nice strawberry and the part of my leg below the brace – we’ll put it this way – never slide on an indoor court.  Everybody knows this – well almost everybody.  We held at 5-6 to force a 12 point tiebreaker (first to 7, win by 2) for the team match.  Thank goodness we came away with the tiebreaker, the match and the team match to improve our record to 3-0.  I have to compliment our opponents because this 3 set match was as close as it gets.  It was filled with momentum swings and key shots landing just in or just out.  It is always a pleasure to play fun people in a close match.  And they gave us a beer afterwards – I like this team. 

Our after party was at Ron’s in Exton.  They have overhauled the restaurant around the corner from Tennis Addiction and it was a great place to resume our tradition of a beverage after matches. It was nice to chat about the match because we just barely won.  4 out of 6 of our opponents are 4.5’s playing as grandfathered 4.0’s (we had 3 in that category) and regardless of how well (or poorly) any of us played – we were essentially even that night.  What I think was the difference was that Eileen and I played our best tennis of the night in the tiebreaker.  Both of us have played difficult post season matches and the difference between tentative play and aggressive play in the last game of a match is sometimes the difference between teams that advance and teams that don’t. 

Our next match is Saturday, January 16^th at the Wild Aces captained by Paul Wilson.  

Of note, many USTA members have been recently bumped up, in fact, one out of every six 4.0 players have been moved to 4.5.  This is making for huge adjustments to current teams and the dust is still settling from the change.  I encourage people with questions to contact their league administrator so they can understand why the changes were necessary and in the interest of fair play and to help grow the game of tennis. 

I recently finished Andre Agassi’s autobiography, Open.  It is a fantastic story which provides much more of a glimpse into the daily minutia that pro players contend with than any other tennis book I’ve read (including the biographies of Sampras, Chang, Gilbert and McEnroe).  The ordeals that tennis player’s face just to play with injuries on any given day is similar (but more extreme) to what many of us deal with.  I don’t think Open is truly a tell all story but you have to respect Andre’s anguished career, hard work and his substantial efforts to give back by providing education for kids.  This is an interesting legacy for an 8^th grade drop-out because many of his challenges were related to his immaturity.  He has come full circle as evidenced by the oath that students at his charter school must repeat daily. “The essence of good discipline is respect. Respect for authority and respect for others.  Respect for self and respect for rules. It’s an attitude that begins at home, is reinforced at school and is applied throughout life.”  Agassi’s book is the best tennis book I’ve read except for the all time best “The Art of Doubles” by Pat Blaskower which was graciously given to me by Bev McGeehan 12 years ago.  Bev – thank you for no longer talking about the “Russell Roll.”  I thought “rolling” was ancient history but since I’m still hitting the court with things besides my sneakers, perhaps not.  Bottom line, I can’t recommend Open enough.

In honor of our opponets, the final sections here are Just for Fun.  Have you purchased any of the latest so called “high-tech” tennis socks – the ones that offer support and padding and whisk away moisture from your feet?  These socks often come with L and R on the toes of the socks.  My question is, if you realize that you put the L sock on your right foot do you take the time to switch it? The socks are so form fitting it takes a minute to take one of these socks on and off properly.  Personally, I’ll go ahead and fix it if I mix up the socks, you certainly don’t want to be on court and wrong footed all day.  These are some random thoughts I came across: 

1. I think part of a best friend’s job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.

2. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you’re wrong.

3. I totally take back all those times I didn’t want to nap when I was younger.

4. There is great need for a sarcasm font.

5. How the heck are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

6. Was learning cursive really necessary?

7. Map Quest really needs to start their directions on #5. I’m pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

8. Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

9. I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t at least kind of tired.

10. Bad decisions make good stories.

11. You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you know that you just aren’t going to do anything productive for the rest of the day.

12. Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blue Ray? I don’t want to have to restart my collection…again.

13. I’m always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten-page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.

14. “Do not machine wash or tumble dry” means I will never wash this — ever.

15. I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? Darn!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voicemail. What’d you do after I didn’t answer? Drop the phone and run away?

16. I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.

17. I keep some people’s phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.

18. My 10-year old son asked me in the car the other day “Dad what would happen if you ran over a ninja?” How do I respond to that?

19. I think the freezer deserves a light as well.

20. I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Bud Lites than Kay.

 Finally, here  is a link http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/clips/china-cold-open/1178451/ to a recent Saturday Night Live Episode of President Obama going to China.  I think it’s as funny as Tina Fey’s skit of Sarah Palin.  Happy Holidays!

PCA improves to 2-0

We won our match on Friday, November 20^th vs. Kinetix 1 3-0.  Kinetix had some availability issues but still managed to put up a good fight.  Congrats to our players who kept us going in the right direction.

On Court 1, Cathy Holskin and Holger Mackenthun faced off against Christine Kuritzkes and hard hitting Larry Jamieson.  Kinetix 1 jumped all over us to start this match as both Christine and Larry were making a lot of great shots and they went up 3-1 in the first set.  Cathy and Holger who recently played well and won their matches at Senior Mixed sectionals weathered the storm and settled in nicely.  We came away with a solid straight sets victory.

On Court 2, Joni Steinhardt and Vinod Philip played Dicun Yang and Melvin Morris.  We won this court 3&4 but from all accounts it was a super competitive match.  Melvin is Jackie Shaw’s husband and having a 4.5 in the family is good for anyone’s game.  Joni and Vinod had to come back from a 1-3 start in the 2^nd set to close this out.  Joni is our Delaware connection and she played very well with Vinod (where is Rebecca) Philip.  Great job Joni and Vinod!

Court 3 was a default and we played this match in order of strength – at least I think we did.  Kathy Joy Hammer and Rob Attman took on Dara Dipietro  and Jim Riggs.  I don’t know Jim Riggs but I heard he is a  4.5 and Dara is certainly top of level 4.0 so this makes our 3 set victory especially nice although it won’t be recorded in book form in the star registry.   KJ is moving (good luck down South!) and Rob is looking to make his mark at 8.0 just like he’s been doing at 7.0 for the past few years. Fantastic job KJ & Rob.  

It’s back to Tennis Addiction for the final 2009 match on December 4^th at 7:30pm vs. Just for Fun.  Just  for Fun is going to be anything but fun and they could easily defeat us with the talent on their roster.  We’ll have to gets lots of practice in so we can be well prepared to deal with our next challenge.  Happy Thanksgiving!

Pork chops & Applesauce, It’s what’s for dinner

The September / October offseason for USTA league play is finally over. The end of August marked the end of Adult season and now we are beginning the new 2010 Mixed doubles season. 

My PATD (Philadelphia Area Tennis District) 8.0 team commenced the year with a home match on Saturday, November 14th at 8pm at Tennis Addiction in Exton, PA.  First things first, nobody, comes into our house, and pushes us around.  (Forget the fact that our opponents play out of Tennis Addiction too.)  On tap for us was a brand new team to our league – the Tennis Addiction Snipers – captained by head marksman Chris Kyper.  Chris is a solid 4.5 and I also play on his Central team with my Central partner who plays with me on my Philly team – are you getting this?

I have not been involved with a better team match.  What a war.  Since the schedule came out a few weeks ago, Chris taunted me in front of others, by text and in person.  He told me a week ago in front of friends that he was having Pork Chops and Applesauce for dinner next weekend and I’m thinking to myself, doesn’t he know I have a blog and he may live to regret this?  What I knew for sure was that Chris has a solid team, that we were in for a real fight and that the match would be on my racket – i.e. if I won my individual court we would win the team match – I knew that as certain as I know my boy’s names.   To make matters worse, we had to play this match without our very best team of Chris Pesta and Canh Ho who recently came out of retirement.

On court 2 Liz Henkin and newcomer John Gassenheimer (of the Germantown Cricket Club Gassenheimers) started things off by taking on a doubles team that defected from my team last year  – errr, I mean Chris Kyper and his partner of two years now  – Veronica Loch.  The first set was really tight.  I glanced over occasionally and saw some crafty play, Chris covering a lot of court and Veronica making some nice shots.  But that was the first set and after Liz & John (who had just met) settled in, they cruised in the 2nd set to a 7-6, 6-1 victory. 

On court 3, our 2nd year partnership of Sue McNabb and Ron Rubenstein faced off against who I was sure was going to be on Court 1 – Julie and Don Seavey.  Don is one of those gifted players and when he’s on – forgetabout it – he’s tough, a strong 4.5.  In fact all of the Sniper pairs were 4.5 men and 3.5 women.  My team was two 4.0 combos and one 4.5 woman with 3.5 guy.  I think that specific combination (a 4.5 woman with a 3.5 guy) is the best recipe for success.  An aggressive guy and a steady Eddie (or Edna) but I digress…  The match on court 3 was very close.  It resembled more of a 9.0 match.  I had heard Julie was playing great these days and that was certainly the case.  The Seavey’s came out on top in a nail biter; 6-4, 2-6, 6-4. 

On Court 1 it was Michelle Corbin and Josh Levine vs. Diana Deaver and myself.  We went down 1-4 in the first set but we managed somehow to bring it back to 4-4.  In the next game, Josh served and I asked my partner – was that serve in?  She said, “I don’t know – I couldn’t see it.”  That’s how it was going – Josh had probably 20 aces throughout the night and surprise, surprise he held for a 5-4 lead.  Then, I got broke to lose the set 4-6.  I was actually surprised that we even got 4 games.  At this point we had real problems and I was pondering questions that didn’t seem to have answers.  The problem was everything Josh touched was put away.    I was so discombobulated that I decided to serve a point underhanded because every other serve I hit was a laser beam at my partner.  I told her what I planned on doing, did it but hit my underhanded serve too far so the ball bounced in the middle of the box and yup, you guessed it, a near decapitating return at my partner who was actually caught off guard by the quick serve – hey, wasn’t that supposed to be the other way around?

We got to 2-3 (on serve) in the 2nd set with me serving to Josh who hit the ball so hard at my opponent that she kinda lost it for a point, I kinda lost it for the next two points and I got  broke and we were down 4-6, 2-4.  As I talked with Diana between points I said with chagrin – “we’re screwed.”  In response, Diana told me never to look at her that way again (with the look of defeat in my eyes). 

I think it’s commonly accepted that if you don’t walk on court knowing you are going to win – you aren’t going to.  I actually thought to myself – if we lost 4-6, 4-6 – hmmm that still sucks but that’s about what I figured the end result would be.  I was also hoping that we’d pull out the other two courts and the team could still win if we lost court 1.  With the jitters gone and our backs up against the wall we broke Michelle and held after a very long game to level the 2nd set at 4-4.  Josh held (shocker) but we managed to win the last 3 games of the set.

So, with courts 2 and 3 splitting, and our match splitting sets on court 1 (thank you Fenton for the best of three sets format) the team match was on the line.  This time was just after 10pm and I called my ex-wife who was watching our boys on my weekend and told her I was late and going to be even later picking up the boys.  She was not happy, she had plans that I was making her late for but she was really great and didn’t make a big deal about it. You’d think after all the practice I gave her in our married life – oh, I’m not even going there… 

I could see several spectators up above in the lobby getting chairs and gathering for the critical 3rd set.  I thought to myself, sheese Russell, you are going to look really bad losing this one with everybody watching with the match on the line. 

The 3rd set started with Josh holding and then we all held our serve for a 2-2 3rd set score.  The match essentially boiled down to the next game.  With Josh serving (and cramping)  we managed to win a 10 deuce game to go up in the 3rd set 3-2.  I felt good at this point and we were able to keep our focus.  I proceeded to hold my serve with Diana playing back, we then broke Michelle (who played a very nice match as we directed a lot of shots her way) and then my partner (Diana) served it out for the improbable victory, 4-6, 7-5, 6-2.  For the record, I’m taking full credit for winning the 2nd set – or perhaps Diana should get more of the credit but whatever – we won the 2nd set.  Josh definitely cramped in the 3rd and if he hadn’t things might not have gone our way.

What a thrilling way to start the season.  We face Kinetix 1 on Friday, November 20th as we and look to finish in the top two spots so that we can advance to post season play.  Thank you to everyone who stayed to cheer for the team, to Betsy Dececco for letting us stay late at TA and for the good sportsmanship all around.  Josh and Michelle are fantastic people to compete with.  This is why tennis addicts love USTA tennis – it’s not very often that you get put in a real challenging situation but when it happens you really get a sense for who you are and what you can accomplish if you keep your head up.

Middle States Sectionals 2009

It was a rainy final weekend of summer with an ominous storm creeping up the Atlantic coast – a fitting ending to the bizarre weather patterns we’ve endured this season.  On Thursday, August 27^th the USTA informed us that we’d be indoors Friday morning to start our first of five Men’s 4.0 Sectional matches and that we’d be playing pro sets – the first to 8 games, win by two with a set tiebreaker if it gets to 8-8.  This was the first time any of us had ever played this abbreviated format in a league match, much less in a post season match.

Stepping back, Sectionals is the championship for the six district winners in the Middle States section.  The Districts are: Philadelphia, Western PA (Allegheny), Central PA, Eastern PA, New Jersey & Delaware.  The format is a round robin against the other five teams with the best cumulative record advancing to Nationals in Las Vegas (for 4.0 men) to represent Middle States against the other 16 sections in the US for the chance to become the 2009 National champions.

We (my Delaware team) came in 2^nd place at Sectionals and we received the dreaded “Finalist” plaques.  Losing is such a bitter pill to swallow.  It’s kind of like the NCAA March Madness tournament in a way.  If you make the dance you did great to get there.  Many teams have to win their conference to advance.  In tennis terms , lets look at the path the Philly 3.5 women have to travel to advance to Sectionals.  They have to win a flight of 10 teams to get to districts – each team pretty much has to go undefeated to win their flight.  Then they have to compete against 9 other teams who all won their own flights at Districts and win 5 matches in a single weekend to represent Philadelphia at Sectionals.  That’s very difficult and injuries, individual matchups and player availabilities typically factor into who advances.  Anything less then winning for teams accustomed to victory is always going to be a disappointment for people who love to compete.

Friday we played just one match which was against the Philadelphia team.  We won 4-1 and started off on the right foot.  Our Delaware team also beat the same Philadelphia team last year and we were optimistic that we could improve upon our 2^nd place finish last year and advance to Nationals in 2009.  On Saturday we played Eastern and won 5-0.  My match was a typical one I think for this format – one break of serve.  In a pro set there isn’t much time to mount a major comeback.  If you get down – you tend to stay down.   We were on serve at 6-5, we broke our opponents serve and then it ended when my partner Ron Rubenstein served it out for an 8-5 win.  What was atypical is that I won this match and my “go do” for all of next year is to put in the effort required to improve upon my sectional record.

In the afternoon we took our 2-0 record and faced off against a meat grinder a.k.a. New Jersey.  Seriously, you may see bits and pieces of our gear in the wake of NJ’s ship heading for Nationals.  They are a phenomenal team.  Kudo’s to Canh Ho for a super impressive 6&1 victory in singles against Michael Roth of NJ.  We started the match outside and then had to go back inside due to rain so in this match we played the best of 3 sets format.  The other courts were not real close with the exception of Dave Baker and John Sell’s valiant attempt to win at #1 doubles.  We lost the first set 3-6 but we won the 2^nd set and raced to a 9-6 lead in the match tiebreaker.  Dave Baker hit a slightly off balance overhead on match point and it came back and then he slammed the 2^nd overhead long – it happens.  Their opponents stayed aggressive on every point and came back to win the match.  What a great fight – credit to everyone who played in this match including New Jersey players Scott Apatkar and Brian Catapano.

On our team, Mark  Adams and Bruce Burcat had a solid weekend of tennis.  Mark made the 10 hour, err 14 hour trip from vacation in Charleston, SC to join the fight on Saturday.  Mark & Bruce always seem to get into a late match battle and then barely pull it out.  Great tennis guys.

On the singles side, a huge ovation is due to Kirill Babak – our Russian sensation.  Some teams need a Johnson to succeed – every team I’m on needs at least one Russian.  Kirill lost 4&4 to New Jersey but he did amazing against everyone else.  His focus on each point and ability to stay aggressive (including on lobs hit over his head) burned vivid images of hard fought effort into my brain.  I was so impressed with Kirill – wow!

Saturday morning my roommate for the weekend (Canh Ho) and I ate breakfast at the Princetonian on Route 1 near Princeton, NJ.  I had a mushroom omelet and Canh had a heart attack on a plate, err, I mean the French Toast – note the 1” diameter rope of a whipped cream like substance on top.  The food and the service were wonderful. On Sunday, teammates of ours ate at the same place and were seated behind our opponents for the day and actually heard some of their lineup discussion.  So that’s two reasons to patronize the Princetonian –great food and a good place to gather intel!

On Sunday we faced off against the Central PA team and won 4-1.  The highlight by far was the 1^st doubles match featuring Dave Baker and John Sell vs. Andrew Sorgi and Bob Eiswert.  Andrew and Bob were undefeated during the weekend except for this match.  It was an outdoor pro set (groan) and perhaps our opponents are actually the better team – who knows.  Andrew and Bob played with emotion and determination as did Dave and John.  Our opponents held server easily (usually at love) until the last few games when they held after a few deuce games.  On our service games, just about every one went to deuce and there were a ton of ad out points but we managed to hold serve every time.  In the set tiebreaker, we were up 3-1 but got behind 4-6 and faced two match out points.  The first was on our opponents serve, then we held 2 points and won the match on the next point 8-6.  One of our opponents threw his racket over the fence and the other smashed his racket on the ground until it no longer resembled a tennis racket.  NJ had already won at this point but it goes to show you the passion and determination of the players.  There are no easy matches at Sectionals and Dave and John showed us all how to hang in there, weather the storm, keep positive and to win baby, just win.

Thank you to Paul Bradbury who is a great captain.  It is a thankless job, he does it great, plays well and supplies the beer.  You just can’t ask for anything more.  Thank you to my partner Ron Rubenstein.  Ron and I have had some good tests and we had a punchers chance against NJ until Ron stepped on a ball near the fence in the first set at 1-3.  Ron finished the match but couldn’t move.  He was forced to sit out Sunday as well due to the injury.  Despite our NJ opponents who are super nice and polite (Ed Poole & Gautam Misra) they also showed how smart they are and lobbed over Ron’s head constantly after his injury.  Stephane Ritz came up from DC to play with us as well.  He took my money at Hold’em on Saturday night and was a lot of fun to hang out with.

There were some funny moments during the weekend as we mostly sat around and waited due to the log jam of courts to go out.  If the event was outside the USTA would have had over 45 courts to put the matches out but since we were indoors they had only 30 courts spread over 5 locations; therefore we waited.  While we were waiting the tournament desk called a 3.5 woman’s match to go out on the next open court.  John Sell, my teammate, met this nice Asian woman at the desk and said politely with his hand extended. “I’m your opponent.”  The look on this poor woman’s face was one of complete terror.  We all roared at the situation and the woman who was a good sport said quite seriously, “you scare me.”  You had to be there – John is twice her size.

So not to stop there, John then decided he needed a towel to clean up.  It was very muggy and warm and John was covered with sweat.  The tournament desk was selling US Open player towels and John asked if he could examine one.  They handed him a nice new towel in a clear plastic bag and John took it out of the bag, toweled off carefully and then he flipped the towel back and said, “eh, no thanks.”  Again, the look of astonishment was priceless and yes he did buy the towel after borrowing the money from Paul. Paul took out a twenty, kissed it with a longing look in his eye and handed it over.

On Sunday when I arrived at Mercer Park I pulled in next to a woman in a new minivan with a Reggae/Rap sounding song cranking.  I got out of my car, got all my stuff, got organized and in about 4-5 minutes the woman got out too.  I asked her if that was the magic song to prepare her and she said that it was.   I should have got the name of that song! She won her match and her 3.5 New Jersey team won a critical match against Billy McElroy’s PATD team to advance to Nationals.

I am paraphrasing here form a letter written by Ernie Davis (he won the Heisman trophy at Syracuse and then died from Leukemia before ever playing a down in the NFL) “the big thing to me in sports has always been the competitiveness.  Sometimes when the game is close and the play is toughest you forget the spectators and the noise, and it is just you against somebody else to see who is the better man.  You are enemies and yet you are brothers.”

As I was leaving the tournament after a very, very long weekend I walked past one of our opponents from the Philadelphia team.  I said from afar, “what a long weekend.”  His reply was, “yeah, it makes me not want to play tennis…   for 3 weeks.”   Well put.

Easy Killer South advances to Sectionals

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?

Big Fat Daddy

I’m not sure when my boys started calling me Big Fat Daddy but I know that I chuckled when I first heard that moniker and it stuck.  At 5’8” my weight has steadily increased over the years.  When I turned 40 I was 240 lbs. and generally feeling lethargic and self conscious about my appearance. Primarily I viewed food as entertainment and despite a nutrition class I had in college, I didn’t realize that I was not eating a healthy diet – shocking – I know.
 
In October 2008 I had been an on again, off again dieter and I seemingly lacked the self control to maintain a significant or permanent weight loss.  I knew I really wanted to diet for my health (I’ve got kids to support) and I can’t stand that post-Thanksgiving dinner feeling when you are half comatose from an immense feast.
 
What got me started on the right path was a cold/flu episode which kicked my butt for 2 weeks.  That illness combined with a modicum of success with my low carb (South Beach) diet and I and got down to about 220 lbs.  By the end of November 2008 I had hit 205 lbs, for the first time in many years.  I realized this was the perfect opportunity to get serious about losing some weight.  I set a goal of 205 lbs. originally and revised that figure twice more, down to 175.
 
To be clear, weight loss is nothing more than a calorie deficit.  You burn roughly 1600 calories a day doing nothing and double that with a decent amount of activity.  Exercise is a necessary component and my activity is tennis about three times a week and a daily routine of pushups and sit ups.  I had never been a sit up fan and I started by doing one set of 10.  The great thing with any activity that becomes a routine is that you make progress and in no time I was doing multiple sets of sit ups and enjoying them.
 
In early December I discovered the Weight bot iPhone app.  It’s a simple app that allows you to enter one weight a day and then provides you with stats and graphs of your progress.  Something about wanting to post a good number for the next day was tremendous motivation for me.  I’d even call it a “land grab” to myself in some situations.  If I hadn’t eaten much for the day and was about to eat a “late in the day” meal – I’d try not to eat knowing that I might weigh 1-2 pounds less in the morning having consumed a low number of calories for the day.  It’s a temporary loss of course but the psychology of making progress is potent momentum.
 
One of the primary things that repeatedly derailed my best intentions was having junk food in the house.  I have come to realize that if I have unhealthy food in the house – in a moment of weakness (usually after I fall asleep and wake up a few hours later with a ravenous hunger) I will go right for it with my cranium disengaged.   I resisted removing chips, fruit snacks, candy and soda because I thought my boys would be upset.  The reality was that they did not notice.  There were perhaps a few complaints at first but none since.  This was just like when we struggled taking the bottle away from my oldest son.  He didn’t like the Sippy cups and was comforted by the bottle.  Once we decided that we must take the bottle away our son, he was fine with it in just a few days.  So who had the issue with the bottle?

The other major influence with my weight loss was the New York Times best-seller Skinny Bitch by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin.  In their words, “Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin started a movement when they wrote their best-selling manifesto, Skinny Bitch. Both a wake-up call and a kick in the ass, Skinny Bitch exposed the horrors of the food industry while inspiring people to eat well and enjoy food.”  And, as I put it – SB is a mildly offensive book demanding that you become a Vegan and complaining about the horrors of animal slaughter practices. However, the book has a lot of good nutritional information and it debunks several myths.  I read it twice.  Here were some of my epiphanies:
 
1) Soda is evil.  I was drinking 1-2 cases of soda a week.  I lost 10 pounds in a week when I stopped drinking soda and I have zero desire to drink soda today.
2) Embrace hunger.  50% of your body’s energy is consumed digesting food.  By delaying eating each day until you are hungry you can give your body extra time to heal and do all the other things it needs to do.  Hunger is a good thing and it means you are making progress. 
3) Not all carbs are bad.  Since I have always gone the Atkins route I usually avoid carbs and I like fish, chicken and beef.  Fresh fruit is high in carbs but they are the right carbs and easily digested.  Fruit has become my candy. Wawa’s Melon Mix or Fruit Medley are truly delectable treats.
4) Eat slowly and smaller portions are key. (I consume probably 1/3 of the food I used to in a day.)
5) Know what you are eating.  If you don’t know, don’t eat it.
6) If you are going to cheat don’t “sneak” it.  Make a big deal about it.  Talk about how much you are looking forward to eating “x” (in my case x = an Oreo Blizzard).  Put whatever you are going to eat on a plate, go slow and try not to finish it.
 
Now that I have reached my target weight I am in a maintenance mode.  I can eat virtually anything but I still maintain a low carb diet and I like the flavored waters with sucralose (Splenda).  Aquafina Grape – mmmm.  One thing that comes along with weight loss is that none of your clothes fit.  You must acquire a new wardrobe but your savings from the decrease in money spent on food will more than offset that expense. 

On a day to day level, here’s my general strategy.  Weigh yourself, record it and think about (plan) what you are going to eat for the day.  Wait as long as you can to eat in the morning, have lunch and dinner and snack on your designated staple.  You can’t simply go hungry and expect to have a lasting weight change.  I need a snack food that I can basically eat as much as I want, whenever I want.  Over the years this “go to” food has been a few different things and it’s important to find a healthy option that you enjoy.  For me its baby carrots and kettle roasted peanuts.  I keep fresh carrots in the fridge and snack on them constantly when I’m home.  You can also buy carrots on the road and some stores sell them with peanut butter – yum!  In the car, I keep a package of Planters kettle roasted salted peanuts.  These peanuts are the same nutritionally as the regular peanuts but they are extra crunchy and delicious.  So, by always having a source of food that can enable me to skip a meal if necessary I can avoid getting off my planned diet.  Finally, coffee and the flavored waters are wonderful drinks that I enjoy often.

All things in moderation.  That is true in so many ways.  I essentially stopped drinking – not that I set out to do that – it’s just how it turned out.  There’s no real scenario where downing a few beers (and being around junk food) is going to help you post a good weight the next day.  I simply wanted to lose weight more than I want to ingest high calorie beverages.
 
To summarize, if I can do it – then anybody can.  I am not the model of discipline and self restraint.  You can do anything you focus on and knowledge is power.  Understanding nutrition enables you to be successful which will aid you in other areas of your life.  Thank you to my friends for being so amazingly supportive of my efforts.  A single positive comment made in passing to a person dieting can make a world of difference to them.  I can remember so many comments that deeply affected me.  As Tony Robbins says, anything you can do for three weeks becomes a habit.  You can get to any weight you’d like to be, enjoy the process of getting to that weight and love your healthy life afterwards.

Innovation and the New Economy

Is some of your data disorganized, inaccurate and hard to understand? Are you diligently trying to make quarterly numbers, trim expenses and preserve some innovation to maintain a competitive advantage? Do you have goals like these?
 
GOAL – Driving more actionable knowledge back to headquarters.
GOAL – Connect your team with the people who pay your company money. 
GOAL – Have peers view IT as a source of innovation connected to the business
 
How would your CEO rate your collaborative performance with key internal colleagues?  How can you enable staff to collaborate without going through IT for accurate, up-to-date key metrics?
 
Sarbox, HIPPA & PCI compliance are required and consume vast resources.  The key is that compliance is not to only goal.
 
Forrester’s CEO Colony calls this the “Gateway Recession.”  The true beginning of the digital economy.  Everything from customer relationship building to brand loyalty will be turned upside down.  This gateway recession is also an opportunity to change the culture from one that internally focused on “user” co-workers to one that’s externally focused on paying customers.
 
CIOs must invest more of their budgets in systems that drive growth and boost the efficiency of the other company departments so that when the economy turns, the company is even better positioned to bury its rivals.
 
One potential way to accomplish this is with SharePoint which enables true collaboration.
 
Older cost models will be examined.  Oracle just reported Q4 operating profit reached 51% (in a recession).  Oracle reported for its fiscal year ended May 31st, it generated $12 Billion from annual maintenance sales and $11.5 Billion from the total sales of new licenses, applications and services.  Does a CIO get enough value for their money?
 
What is cutting edge today and where do we see it?  In government typically, mostly military as early adopters of:  IPV6, Enterprise Search, public data sets, social networking, Exchange 2010, Windows 7, Apples OS X “Snow Leopard” and three-factor authentication.
 
Realize that a paradigm shift is under way.  You can’t simply “stay out of the way.” To do so is to treat innovation as a magical force that can’t be managed or improved.  Companies can’t treat innovation as something that happens organically.  As Chris Murphy says, Innovation is “an un-natural, generally uncomfortable process.  It must be asked for, nurtured, demanded and prodded for companies to keep delivering.” 
 
Have a discussion with Diamond Technologies (my fabulous employer) about innovation with SharePoint.  Our experience with many organizations helps clarify what a good information “findability” strategy can deliver.   We perform assessments, architecture planning, business value planning (building the ROI), best practices guidance, mentoring, implementation and support.

EK topples Great Valley 3-2

And so our regular season comes to an end.  We finished our season against Great Valley who is our primary competition to represent the Men’s 4.0 “Red Division” at Districts.  The Great Valley team was formed team last year and in our four meetings with them we are now 2-2.  Unfortunately for us, it appears that Great Valley will advance to Districts this year.  Congrats guys – you’re an admirable team. The primary reason GV will advance is their dedication and commitment.  They have a cohesive group of solid players and the requisite ringers to make waves in the post season.  Go get ‘em.

What a sad week with the recent deaths.  There is one more Angel in heaven now.  They say celebs die in threes. Leave it to Billy Mays to throw in one extra COMPLETELY FREE!  In fact, I knew Michael was in big trouble – he was white as a ghost (sorry)…

GV will still need to get past the West Chester Aces to make it official.  The Aces defeated us once this year by playing us real tough when several of our top players had outside commitments.  I am in favor of a flight championship for the top 4 teams so that player availability does not decide the winner of the flight.  Let the best team advance.  This format in so many other districts repeatedly shows the 2nd and 3rd place teams advancing to Sectionals and sometimes even Nationals. 

As is our tradition for the last home match of the season, we don our dress blues.  We have almost always purchased a team shirt and one year we went with team shorts.  It has a nice effect of building a sense of purpose and unity.  When our opponents this weekend saw our shorts the comments were “nice pajamas.”

On to the match, at #1 Singles, new EK teammate Cameron O’Donnell of Allentown, PA faced off against Dave Umbach of Miami Springs, FL in an unexpected matchup.  Cameron plays 4.5 singles for Tennis Zone and we met when he played our 4.5 team in the first match of the year.  Cameron played against Steve Beers and did quite well for a 4.0 computer rated player.  He accepted our invitation to join our 4.0 team but unfortunately his tennis schedule and ours have been mutually exclusive until last Saturday.  Cameron is a rock solid addition and he won 2&4 against Dave.  Welcome Cam and thanks.  Why Great Valley filed a grievance after the match against Cam is beyond me.  He’s a three year computer rated player. 

At #2 Singles our soon to be a poppa Canh Ho faced off against Great Valley’s Brett Siegfried for a PATD 4.0 heavyweight match.  In fact, I have seen many a 4.5 lineup without such a powerful matchup. (By the way, Canh’s wife is due, she’s already dilated and starting to have contractions.)  Canh is one of the best “adapters” and so is Brett.  Brett is a counter puncher and you have to be smart and consistent to beat him.  Brett continued his EK dominance and won this match over Canh 6-3, 1-6, 7-6.  Canh had 2 match points at 5-4, 40-15 in the 3rd set and he was up in the tiebreaker but credit Brett for a phenomenal win.  It’s hard to think of a better 4.0 player except for perhaps, hmmm, lemme think, Greg Heck?!  Who knows how Brett is able to remain at 4.0 year after year– he’s an exceptionally talented player.

At #1 Dubs we rolled out Tom McAvoy and Hap-py Phout-more.   Tom is an exciting player who teamed with Eric Markowitz on 6/6/09 to defeat Lonnie Cooper and Mike Ruhl in straight  sets.  In my opinion, Lonnie and Mike are the Gold standard in our league for 4.0 competition.  If you beat them, you are 4.5.  Tom McAvoy is also doing well at 4.5 this year so this probably will be his last year at 4.0.  Hap is a Delaware native who was 11-0 on the season coming into the match.  Tom & Hap played Greg Heck and Rich Trach and lost 2&5 – ouch!  I had a 30 minute chat with Sean McElroy from Kinetix last week and we discussed many tennis related things.  Sean made the comment that Greg Heck, “regularly beats him in singles.”  For those of you who don’t know Sean, he won at the 2008 5 Men’s 5.0 National Championships.  I think Greg did indeed limit himself to 6 beers the night before and let me be the first to say congratulations on the win, welcome to 4.5 and inevitably goodbye (to the 4.0 ranks.)

At #2 Dubs long time partners Eric Markowitz and Tom Faith showed why I’ll never separate them (any more).  They just win.  They played a less difficult match the week before and needed a 3rd set breaker to prevail.  This time they faced the formidable German duo of undefeated Holger Mackenthun and singles ace Michael J Schmidt.  We won this match in straight sets – go figure.  Holger and Mike are a super pair and just plain fun.  Unfortunately I couldn’t understand what they were saying most of the time – something about Ralf the Red Nosed Racing Boar, Schweinsöhrchen and Claudia Schiffer.  I did hear that Michael is going to move back to Germany soon – you will be missed.  Great playing guys! 

At 3rd doubles, Ron Rubenstein and I faced off against Ken Werkiser and Guy Van Alstine.  The comment they made about our team shorts was “how did the sleepover go last night.”  Hardy Har Har.  The individual matchup was curious.  It began with Ron and I desperately trying to give them free points.  We were down 0-2, Love-30 on my serve when I complained to Ron that we are giving them the first 3 games.  We finally settled in and rattled off the next 7 games for a 6-2, 1-0   lead.  That’s when the Great Lobsters went to plan Bob, I mean Lob.  And lob they did from both sides of the net in the considerable wind with devastating effectiveness.  We were perhaps too aggressive as we needed to hit several overheads per point and we were making errors.  We lost the 2nd set 2-6 and we were down 3-4, Love-30 in the 3rd set before something clicked in my head.  My opponent’s wrist band which had originally appeared red to me now seemed like it has been washed so much it had faded?  I thought about all of the teasing and the compliments and the excessive eye contact.  Hmmm.  I decided to switch shirts.  I relaxed for just a minute mid-switch and then marched back to the deuce side of the court.  With my best smile on my face I was prepared to do what I had to.  Our opponent seemed distracted.  We took the next 3 games and closed out the match. 

After we walked off court I learned that we took two other courts already which meant we won the team match which was as sweet as a late night slice of cake from my favorite diner.  I gave everyone a high five hard enough to leave a mark – ahh, it’s great to behave like a little kid.

Last week I realized that Great Valley has their own blog http://gv40tennis.blogspot.com/ – kinda of a sister team blog right?  It is well written and very enjoyable to hear to their thoughts and insight as they navigate towards the post season.

So all is well that ends well.  I want to offer a special thank you to our team for the eventful season and to our opponents for the strong competition.  I know that I had a lot of enjoyment this season and I hope that we can all continue to play the game we love.  We should value our tennis contacts and relationships because having fun in our spare time is why we do this.  Right?  I think I’m violating the Man rule that tennis is not social but c’mon.  I do want to acknowledge a few teammates.  Ed Daou was new to the team this year.  What a guy – improving player, practices, communicates, usually available.  Thanks Ed.  Mel Navea played with us for the first time from CPD, very helpful – thanks Mel.  Justin Bussinger was also a new addition and he’s exactly what we need to continue our winning and having fun. Phil Cannavo, Joe Sassa, Chris Flouris and especially Mitch Reading – no one could have better teammates.  Mitch really kicked up his game this year.

My philosophical comment is that people need to chill on some of the strange behavior we see in the league.  Case in point, Lakeside is defaulting a team match in protest to USTA matters they don’t like.  This possibly advances one team over another which is not a good thing.  Can you summarily blame Lakeside? – not exactly. I am not saying I agree with them nor am I even addressing the issues at hand.  I can understand their frustration as I see it so often in my role as a USTA league coordinator.  Many people who we all play against have ultra competitive personalities so some conflict is to be expected.  I think many people do not fully understand the rules which lead to unfortunate misconceptions about ratings and policies.  If you have questions – talk with someone who can address your concerns.  What is often lacking is the “big picture” view of league tennis.  It’s just tennis after all.  TENNIS!  If someone is out of level, they’ll get bumped up.  A line call or two does not change the outcome of a match.  The only legitimate reason to get upset in a match is if you believe your opponent is trying to intentionally cheat or manipulate you.  As a USTA veteran with over 10 years of league play experience – that is rarely the case.  As I tell captains in every captains meeting I speak at; be generous, give the benefit of doubt, be flexible, reschedule graciously and be accommodating.  It will come full circle before your own eyes.

And speaking of things we never knew, how many can say that they know the lyrics to this song?

“Blinded by the light, revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night” (A “deuce” is a reference to a 1932 Ford Pickup.)  “Some brimstone baritone anticyclone rolling stone preacher from the east Says, “Dethrone the dictaphone, hit it in it’s funny bone, that’s where they expect it least.”

Tennis junkie weekend

Easy Killer defeated the West Chester Aces 3-2 on Saturday, June 13, 2009 to improve to 6-2 on the season.  We won easily at singles but had to hold on for dear life with a 7-6, 3rd set victory (and we were down in the tiebreaker) at 2^nd doubles.  All’s well that ends well and we have 2 matches remaining. 

I will deviate from my usual format of primarily reporting on our PATD 4.0 team (Easy Killer).  I wasn’t at the match on Saturday so writing a recap would be more fiction than usual.  I will instead recap my own tennis weekend.  It started at 8pm on Friday night by playing a match for my Central Penn (CPD) team in Landisville, PA under the lights.  The Hempfield Rec center is an amazing facility with a superb layout, a viewing stand, indoor courts and a vibrant membership replete with strong tennis players.  We faced one of the tougher teams and unfortunately lost the team match 2-3.  What was really nice was my own doubles court where for the first 90% of the match we got our butts kicked.  We dropped the first set 3-6 and our opponents were serving in the 2nd set up a break at 4-3.  My partner who I had never played with was Ryan Jeckel.  Ryan is a strong player who likes to communicate.  He constantly harped on being positive, communicating after every point and adjusting to what our opponents were doing. 

I’m not sure how I would have handled the match without Ryan as my partner.  I can get real frustrated when things don’t go my way but one thing Ryan said mid-match was “don’t give them the satisfaction” (by looking distraught after a particularly frustrating point).  He was so right.  Move your feet, talk, adjust, be positive, just like Clint Eastwood’s mantra in Heartbreak Ridge, “improvise, adapt, overcome.”

Ryan told me we had to break Rich who was serving at 4-3 in the 2^nd set.  “We must break him now.”  We went down 0-30 but we remained focused and we took the next 4 points and broke him to level the set at 4-4.  It was Ryan’s turn to serve and we held easily at love for a 5-4 lead.  Our opponent Bill, who went to 4.0 Mens Nationals last year, was serving next and he had been winning his serve at love in the first set.  We were adjusting to his game and at least putting a little more pressure on his serve although we hadn’t broken him.  Ryan told me for the first time all night to hit every single ball to Rich.  I hit my first two returns down the line (basically at Rich) and we raced out to a 40-0 lead – triple set point.  Bill served an ace out wide and then they won a long point to make it 30-40.  Bill served to Ryan and after a few shots on both sides they hit the ball wide.

We started the mandatory 3rd set tiebreaker immediately as we did not want to lose our new found momentum.  We stayed aggressive and won the tiebreaker 10-2.  We got a few breaks in the tiebreaker but by this point Ryan and I were playing as a team and starting to be effective.  This was a great win for us as our opponents are solid players.  It proves that you can talk you way to victory when you are up against a wall. 

Saturday morning I played with my regular partner Ron Rubenstein for the Delaware team (DD) we are both on.  We faced two crafty seniors who have won most of the matches they have played.  They lobbed us with surprising effectiveness but our challenge was primarily to stay aggressive and remain focused.  We jumped out to a 6-2, 3-0 lead before dropping the next 3 games which included losing Ron’s serve.  As a team, losing Ron’s serve should never happen.  My strength is by far my net play.  Ron’s strength is his powerful 1st and 2nd serves.  But, we got broke and found ourselves in a match that we thought we had already won.  Fortunately we managed to win the next 3 games, the match and the team match 4-1.  A very nice way to start what turned out to be an unexpectedly rainy Saturday. 

On Sunday, Ron and I again played for our DD team.  As most of us tennis veterans do, we take our tennis seriously.  Our team showed up a half hour early to warm up and by match time we were ready to go – except that we only had 7 guys and we were still waiting for our 8th and final teammate.  We were all standing at the net much like friends on a street corner.  Our group at the net was one guy who is about 30 and the rest of us are all 40+.  We were laughing and wondering where our final man was.  On a side note, “lateness penalty” does not seem to be in the lexicon of the Delaware players which I think is terrific.  One of the reasons for this is that the Delaware league coordinator (who does an awesome job) handles all of the scheduling for the teams.  This is great but you end up playing at some strange locations.  For instance, we played aDuPont as a home match on their courts and then this weekend we were playing an away match on our home courts – go figure.  So, with not everyone crystal clear on home team/away team there isn’t any pressure to start the match promptly at the start time.  The rules state that if you arrive 16 minutes after the start time you can be defaulted.  On rare occasions I have been late before which is always a stressful situation as I like the calm mental prep time before I compete.  Arriving late would disrupt this process so I am almost always early.  At 20 minutes past the start time we hear loud dance music coming from the road and getting louder.  Our player had arrived.  He pulls in, takes a few minutes to exit the car, keeps the music pumping and then gets out, hair styled, looking great and ready to play.  Paul Bradbury, our captain, turned to us all and said, “ahhh, we were all young once too.”

Ron and I played a younger pair than the day before and they were hitting the ball with pace and spin.  They served to start the match and we barely got the serves back which were poached and pounded by the net guy.  I decided we would both play back in the next service game but I didn’t want to make the adjustment in the first game as I didn’t want to give our opponents the added boost in confidence.  Ron held his serve and we got on a good roll.  We were up 5-1 after Ron held again.  With our opponents serving 30-40 on set point Ron hit a driving groundstroke that was weakly hit back to us just over the net.  I pounced and aimed my volley at feet of my opponent closest to the net.  I was off by about a foot and the ball went between the knees of my opponent for a winner.  However, the swift reaction by our opponent to protect himself caused an injury to his shoulder.  We played two more games and then at 6-1, 1-1 – they retired.  It’s a real bummer to have a match end like this and hopefully our opponent is OK and heals quickly.  My apologies and they are two real good sports.

And that’s it for this update.  We play Healthplex on Saturday (assuming it ever stops raining) and then Great Valley 6/27.

K9 advances to Sectionals!

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 3^rd 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 4^th place team (Kinetix vs. the Soul in this case) and the 2^nd place team plays the 3^rd 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 5^th 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 – 21^st in Landisville, PA.  The winner advance to competes in the first ever truly national, Nationals in Las Vegas, NV November 20^th-22^nd.  How sweet would this be?  I know K9 has every chance to do well.