We had a nice 8.0 team win on Saturday, January 14^th @ 9pm in the friendly confines of Tennis Addiction.  Springton K-O has quality players and I was a little nervous about this match.  Captain Hedy Lamarr Kurland got her lineup just right which pitted our best team against their weakest and their #1 team against our #3 for, you guessed it, the winner of the match.  Are you with me so far?

Our toughest team (Doreen Fulmer and Dejan Blagovcanin) delivered a swift KO winning their court 2&1.  At 2^nd doubles, the battle of the #2 teams ended with us losing a close match which had numerous momentum swings.  Congrats to Springton for pulling this court out by winning the 2^nd set tiebreakers and a match tiebreaker.

What decided the match was 1^st doubles which featured Vickie Tully and Vibhas Maddan vs. Darlene Hildebrand and Ed Daou.  To set the stage, I introduced Darlene to Ed before the match.  What transpired was a fairly thrilling three set battle.  Watching the 3^rd set I could see a rising level of confidence (swagger) from Darlene and Ed who through their body language signaled to me, “I got this.”  Well, at least in my mind.  We managed to come away with the W by taking the 3^rd set 6-4.   This was a good win for us and we need more of these big efforts.  Great playing all around.

Earlier in the day my 9.0 team faced TST captained by Tom James.  I’ve played Tom a few times in practices but I don’t think I ever played an actual match against him.  Tom is a great sport and he’s simply fun to play against – (only when you’re ahead, of course).  I was able to pull out my court 6-4 in the 3^rd with the help of Diana Deaver (who partnered with me earlier in the day for another win – nice job Diana).

On court 2, we lost a tough match 4&4 to Suzanne McAllister and Rob Laiacona.  This was a 2 hour, 2 set match that finished about the same time my 3 set match did.  At #1 doubles, we put up a valiant fight before losing in 3 sets to Jennifer Breslin and John Berberich.

Looking around the league in Philly 9.0, Kinetix stunned Tennis Addition on Friday for first place.  There are no district playoffs at 9.0 this year so this was a really big match.  I was a little surprised when I saw the pairings and the results but hey, on any given day you know what can happen.  I’m guessing that the winner of the regular season will come down to tiebreakers between these two teams.

At 8.0, the Pirates are on auto-pilot to win Flight C having defeating UMLY 2 over the weekend.   Magarity Rage is still in control in Flight B and in Flight A – what a battle!?!  Ninjas lost to Bucks County, Bucks lost to Pennsbury, and Pennsbury lost twice to middle of the pack teams.  Ninjas Nuts & Berries plays Pennsbury 1/28 and that’s an important match.  I think all three teams are capable of winning this flight and they all play each other one more time.

Just a quick note on the Australian Open – could he really?

I’m not going to critique the individual teams in this match but what I did see was an inconsistent performance that yielded a solid win at 1^st doubles and two 6-4 third set victories that could have gone either way.  At first doubles Mindy Graziola partnered with Captain John Ferringo for an impressive win.  Mindy and John were steady and somewhat aggressive and they earned their win.  Mindy closed it out with a backhand winner down the line.

At 2^nd and 3^rd doubles, what I primarily witnessed was quite a few errors and shifts in momentum.  2^nd doubles must have had double digit breaks of serves and while watching the match it was hard to tell who was winning.  Suzanne Olson and James Ferringo were doing just enough to keep our guys off-balance and they earned the victory in a tight match.

Initially, I thought that 3^rd doubles was looking good for us.  Ron was styling in his Janko Tipsarević glasses and despite a slow start we were winning our share of the points.  Jennifer Bastion and Joseph Ferringo seemed at times to waver but without fail they’d rebound from any adversity and prevent us from taking control.  I had to leave 2 hours into the match and thus I was waiting for “the call.”  “The call” needed to be soon for it to be good news.  “The call” never came from my teammates as I’m sure they weren’t too thrilled about the results.  This is the 2^nd time in my history of captaining Mixed teams since 2005 that we have dropped all three courts (in about 100 matches).

John, James and Joseph (jingleheimer schmidt) sure did get us.  Grrrrrr…  Congratulations– nice job, all three Funsters teams seemed to have decent chemistry and I’m wondering how this team was 1-3 entering the match.  Without a doubt, when you play tennis you will have a variety of performance levels.  It is a hallmark of better players that when they are in a funk, they can snap out of their malaise, move their feet and adjust their strategy.  If we lose another match, We are Farmers, bum buh-duh duh duh duh duh dum!  Substitute Farmers with something else but keep the bum buh-duh duh duh duh duh dum!

Up next we face a good Springton K-O team on Saturday, January 14th.  We have a difficult road ahead if we want to qualify for post season play but without question, we have the talent.   Tennis, the final frontier, with our continuing mission to boldly go where no one has gone before, well since the Pirates did it last year, to Sectionals.

On the 9.0 front we were able to put a scare into the first place team Tennis Addiction captained by Cindy Basile on Friday night by taking the first set on 2^nd and 3^rd dubs but this match didn’t turn out properly either.  Good luck Tennis Addiction – this is a strong team.

I am looking forward to tennis Down Under next week.  I have a good feeling about this tournament.  No, not about my inevitable sleep deprivation, about Roger Federer picking up his 17^th Major championship.  On the woman’s side – I’m thinking Vera Zvonareva will get it done.

A funny conversation I had with a co-worker talking about learning a computer programming language.  He said he learned it when he got his G degree.  I told him that I had never heard of Graduate school being called a G degree.  He said, “not Graduate, Google.”

Taking a quick look around the league, Bucks County captained by Cheryl Taylor looks like a contender at 4-0 with a few quality wins already. I suspect it will be them and Ninjas Nuts and Berries contending to represent Flight A at Philly Districts come April.

In the other flight (Flight B), Magarity Rage led by Larry Gardner seems (again) to be the most formidable foe in this flight as they are undefeated at 3-0.  This team has earned a place at Districts for the last few years and certainly I suspect that they will again in 2012 as two of their 3 wins are against their strongest competition (Kinetix and Margarity In It for Fun).

My 9.0 team is 0-2 after losses to Kinetix and Pennsbury but we could win our 3^rd match we played assuming with win the remaining 3^rd doubles court.  There are some excellent teams at 9.0 and with the fairly large number of players who have been bumped to 4.5 it’s a large and all encompassing level with many strong players.

This Philly 9.0 flight is tough!  TA, Kinetix, DVTA and Pennsbury are all capable of winning but I’d put my money on Tennis Addiction.  Kinetix went to Nationals last year so they can only have 3 of those players on any given roster.  Pennsbury is very good as is DVTA who beat Pennsbury but lost to TA.  The 9.0 season started a few weeks after 8.0 so there are many more matches to go but with 4 solid teams in a 7 team flight there are no easy matches at 9.0.

I play on a Delaware and a Central PA 9.0 team as well and I have played several 9.0 matches this year.  This is my 2^nd season as a 4.5 and I think I am now in a better position to say what seems to be the difference is between 8.0 and 9.0.

The 9.0 players are better.  OK, that’s obvious.  The ball moves much more quickly in 9.0 matches and the players are steadier.  As one of my recent matches against Jenny Grove and Jim Werst indicates, you have to do more than stay in the point.  Jenny and Jim were both recently 5.0 players who have been able to appeal back to 4.5.  Jenny has phenomenal hands – every putaway hit in her direction just seems to come back.  We started out 2-2 in the first set, and then, well, it still hurts to sit down we got spanked so bad.  Jenny and Jim made us hit 6, 8, 10 shots per point and they didn’t give us sitters.  If we didn’t put a little something on the shot, they’d close in and put it away.  If I got overly aggressive and tried for a big shot, I often made an error.

So, the answer for this example is that Jenny and Jim were simply better than my partner and I but digging a little deeper you have to end the points at 9.0 whenever possible and you also have to weather the storm and be willing to play a little defense too.   In other words, lots of patience and the ability to be aggressive in the right situation – sounds easy right?

At the upper end of 8.0, you have to be aggressive but at the end of the day you can typically direct the majority of your returns to the weaker player and hope for an unforced error from your opponent before you make one.  You don’t have to take too much risk and a calm, “steady –as-you-go” demeanor can take you a long way.   This is not a good strategy at 9.0.  I don’t think I’ve said anything newsworthy in this post but it’s helpful to understand what strategies work and what doesn’t.  My only other comment is that it’s best to have a good 2^nd serve and short of that you’d better put 90% of your first serves in.

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 3^rd 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 3^rd 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?

Before we qualified for Nationals we had to play a full regular season in Delaware and finish in the top two in order to qualify for Delaware District playoffs in July.  Winning Delaware Districts over the Marauders was a significant accomplishment as they win almost every year.  The Marauders played us tough at Districts and with the no-ad scoring format that was used (due to the heat) we were happy to advance.  This win gave us entry into the Middle States Sectional Championships in late August.  Middle States is 1 of 17 sections in the nation and is comprised of 6 districts (New Jersey, Delaware, Western PA, Central PA, Eastern PA and Philadelphia). We went 5-0 in round robin play at Sectionals which earned us the right to compete at Nationals.

In the National championship tournament, the sections are divided randomly into 4 flights and you play in a round robin format with the best record in each flight advancing to the final four; the semi-finals and finals.  In our flight we faced teams from Duluth MN (Northern Section), Milford NH (New England Section) and Fort Wayne IN (Mid-West Section).  In the semi-finals we faced a great team from Seattle WA (Pacific Northwest Section) and in the final we played a team from Los Angeles CA (Southern Cal Section).

My goals for this post is to highlight the events and participants, to explain how we did it and also what’s involved with assembling a team that can compete for a National Championship.  I have captained two teams that have made it to Mixed Nationals (2008 & 2010) and I’d group the responses received into a few categories which are primarily supporters and conspiracy theorists.   In terms of the supporters; the calls, emails, texts and words of congratulations are wonderful, thank you.  For the conspiracy theorists; my hope is that by reading this you gain a better understanding of how we did this.  The bottom line is that winning a National Championship is difficult, rare and a tremendous accomplishment.  Our captain Chris Kyper, co-captain John Ellis and all of our players deserve a ton of credit and recognition for this splendid accomplishment.

We had 22 guys on the team and 11 made the trip to Nationals in Tucson, AZ.  The 11 that traveled were not our absolute best but with that said, we had our key players.  This was fortunate as some of the other teams were missing some of their very best players and that’s always an important variable in post season play.

Our trip got off to a good start and everyone traveled to Tucson one to three days before the tournament.  This gave us time to acclimate to the desert conditions and the high elevation.  Tucson is 2600’ up and that makes the balls fly off your racket a bit.  It’s wise to string up a few pounds, pronate your grip a little more and practice in these conditions.

On Thursday, the day before Nationals started, we all hit for 2-3 hours. We attended the USTA player banquet and enjoyed a pleasant buffet filled with some interesting Halloween costumes.  The winner of the best costume contest was the crocodile hunter complete with a life size inflatable croc and he had the Aussie accent to boot.  Second place was “breasts” with two women joined together with a kickball under their shirts. After the banquet we watched Game 6 of the World Series and since our captain is a lifelong St. Louis Cardinals fan it was really fun to watch.  The lead seemed to change hands like a basketball game and when the game ended we were all left stunned by the turn of events.  The team got a good rest and we prepared for our first two matches on Friday at 10:30am and 3:30pm.

First up we faced the Duluth MN team which was representing the Northern section.  This was a decent team and the only team to take a set off of our co-captain John Ellis.  Northern raced to 6-2 first set win at 1st dubs (John Ellis and Nick Gallagher’s court) and the other doubles courts looked to be close.  We had things well in hand at singles with our top guy Ryan Gargullo on auto-pilot at 1st singles and Alex Tanzio playng great at #2 singles.  At 2nd dubs Joe Ferry and Jared Howat won a tough match in a 3rd set breaker and we ended up winning this match dropping only 3rd doubles.  Whew!  So far, so good…

The 2nd match of the day was against the New England section winner, a team from Milford, NH.  This team was the weakest in our group and must have had some player shortages and/or injuries.  They lost all five courts in their first match and we ended up taking all five courts as well.  This set up a Saturday match against the other 2-0 team in our flight; the Ft. Wayne, IN team who was 10-0 in individual matches (each match is the best of five courts – 2 singles and 3 doubles).  Since the Fort Wayne team had only lost one individual set in two team matches, we were all a little nervous.

Friday night we went to dinner and debated our lineup choices ad nauseam.  We went round and round and at 10:30pm while sitting in our hotels beautiful outdoor hot tub (and before being booted from our hotel’s beautiful hot tub) we got into it again and finally reached a consensus.  Then, the following morning at 8am, a half hour before our lineup was due to be submitted, co-captain John Ellis knocked on our hotel door (I was staying with Chris Kyper) and we got into it one last time.  John and Chris went round and round and were mostly in favor of making a move that I disagreed with.  Since John Ellis and Ryan Gargullo are our best two singles players the idea was to win these two courts and hope for a doubles win which would mean 3 courts and thus a team win.  I was happy to be quiet and listen as I didn’t want a loss on my shoulders but when Chris asked, “Russell, what would you do?” I sighed and said, “you have to play Oliver Jones at singles, he won’t lose at Nationals.”  This sparked further dialog but in the end Chris and John decided to play Oliver at singles.

Our lineup was formulated by a few hours of research on the Ft. Wayne team, Google searches and our best guesses on what they would do.  We thought that they had a singles player who wouldn’t lose all tournament and a doubles ace who was equally as good.  They had a history of moving their lineup around so we really didn’t know what to expect.  Our strategy was to lead with Ryan Gargullo at 1st singles because our hopes rested on his shoulders and if he couldn’t get it done then we weren’t going to win Nationals.  We played Oliver Jones at #2 singles and our doubles lineup of John Ellis/Nick Gallagher, Joe Ferry/Jared Howat and Jason Goldman-Petri (JGP)/Trevor Anderson.  What happened was their #1 guy was injured and he played 1st doubles.  Their #1 doubles guy (Brian Becker) played #1 singles and he won easily at singles in the 2nd Friday match.  Their doubles courts were strong and the one guy they had at 3rd doubles may have been the best doubles guy in the tournament.

At #1 singles, we won in straight sets with Ft. Wayne’s Becker forcing Ryan Gargullo into a 2nd set tiebreaker.  Becker was the 2nd best player we faced all weekend and he hit the snot out of almost every shot, especially his flat serves.  He is a tremendous athlete.  Ollie (Oliver Jones) was amazing at #2 singles and he won a 3rd set match tiebreaker against an 18 year old, 6’5″ stub with a tremendous kick serve.  We had 2 match points at 1st doubles and this was the only contentious match of the tournament.  We won 2nd doubles with a great performance by John & Nick and we got smushed at 3rd doubles for a 3-2 team win and birth into the semi-final round.  Yippee!

We dined at PF Changs Saturday night and again got a good rest for our 7:30am match and (hopefully) 10am match on Sunday.  I was scrambling to change my flight and then the lineup debates started in earnest.

Our strategy for the semi-final match was based on the fact that the Seattle team had won only one singles court all weekend.  To counter that we played our best singles player at doubles to bolster our own doubles lineup and paired John Ellis with Jared Howat to make yet another “super” doubles team.  This left us with weaker singles and two very strong doubles team.

The semi-final match against the team from Seattle was pretty much over when lineups were submitted because we hit the lineup perfectly.  They threw 1st singles thinking they’d get Ryan Gargullo.  They took their best guy and put him at #2 singles.  With the rest of their guys they played their typically strong doubles lineup straight up.  Their #1 doubles team had not lost all year.  We won 1st and 2nd doubles with our newly formed teams and we split singles for the 3-2 victory.  This was our only singles loss of the tournament so a special congratulations goes to our singles guys: Ryan Gargullo, Oliver Jones, and Alex Tanzio.   And while I’m on the topic of individual accomplishments, Ryan Gargullo, John Ellis, Oliver Jones and Nick Gallagher all went undefeated at Nationals.

For the finals we weren’t sure what to do so we went back to the Mid-West lineup except that we inverted singles with Ryan playing #2 for the first time all weekend.  They put their best singles guy, Michael Smith who was the equal if not better than Ryan Gargullo at 2nd singles. The slight difference was that Ryan played doubles in the 7:30am match and Michael played singles.  Ryan was a tad fresher and roughly 10 years younger.  Both guys were hitting bombs; the points were high quality and long.  It was an epic match which Ryan won 10-5 in the match tiebreaker.

By the time this court finished we had already won #1 singles (Oliver Jones) and #1 doubles (John Ellis and Nick Gallagher)  so we rushed the court and celebrated.  In the dog pile I saw Joe Ferry and Jared Howat who were still playing their doubles match.  I even saw some tears on my teammate’s faces.  Shortly after, Trevor Anderson and Jason Goldman-Petri won their court as well.

So what is the key to our 21-0 season?  It’s the Randomizer of course.  John Ellis was able to pack our well used mystery machine into his luggage for Nationals and we used it for every match (you can also use it by going to randomizer.org). We decided pairings for each match but the decision to play 1st, 2nd or 3rd doubles or even 1st or 2nd singles was handled by the Randomizer.  In our last 3 matches, if the Randomizer didn’t get it exactly right, we probably would not have advanced.  But then again, the randomizer worked perfectly all season long.

Here’s the recipe for success.  You need some youth on your team.  No, not because younger guys are just better but because they typically have less injuries and can play back to back matches with their level of play only dropping slightly.  To win, you also need an organized captain, a responsive team, good research and plenty of luck.  I had expected to see mostly younger players at Nationals and I saw the opposite.  Most of the players were well into their 30s and I even saw several seniors playing singles – but then again youth still helps.

Another reason we were able to capture Nationals was Chris Kyper’s tireless efforts to recruit players and we had a player from Baltimore and various Philadelphia area players.  And yet another reason was  Chris Kyper took his Philadelphia District team to District playoffs and defeated the Kinetix/Ambler team which had 3 of our starters at Nationals on it.  Kinetix/Amber was a big favorite to win and if Chris’s Philly team didn’t win Districts our Sectional and National lineups would have been devoid of Ryan Gargullo, Alex Tanzio and Joe Ferry. This concentration of talent from the Middle States section gave us an edge.  It’s incredible that Chris was so successful with his Philly team and he told me that in the beginning of the season he didn’t expect to make playoffs in the Philadelphia District.

When I say parity at Nationals – you betcha.  Most of the teams were quite even. There was very little separation and it came down to strategy and the ability to execute on court.  I saw a great Southern team that has 4 match points to advance to the Finals round when they were up 9-6 in the 3rd set match tiebreaker with the team match tied 2-2.  In my mind, Southern was the team to beat.  The unofficial consensus that I heard from spectators at Nationals was that the LA team we played had the most impressive strokes from a pure tennis perspective followed by Southern and nobody seemed to be saying much about Middle States.  I think what separated us was perfect lineups, a team that could mostly get their top players out with no major injuries (but lots of minor ones) and great execution.

Tucson in late October is a beautiful place with the morning temps in the high 40s and afternoon highs in the upper 80s during the day.  Our resort had a beautiful compound with a large pool, tennis courts, lime trees and grapefruit trees.  There seems to be no clouds in Tucson and the scenery is fantastic.   We are the champs now but with that said, how are we going to repeat next year?

I took a mini-vacation with the family this weekend in Lancaster, PA.  I was not interested in another Amusement park venture as we’ve been to Hershey, Dorney and even Busch Gardens many times.  My boys are 8 and 10 now so it’s time for some more educational activities.  So, back to Lancaster…

We started out with a beverage at a wine / microbrewery called Rumspringa.  I enjoyed a wonderful beer and was able to keep my souvenir pint glass.  The boys had a choice between Root Beer and Birch Beer and we went with our server’s recommendation to stick with Root Beer (he said it was sweeter).

Next up was an Amish buggy ride.  Our driver who was 75 began the tour by stating that we could “ask him anything.”  And ask we did – no, not about puppy mills, but we did ask just about everything else.  There was another couple in our buggy from New Brunswick, Canada.  They drove 14 hours, didn’t have hotel reservations and they were making their way towards Williamsburg, VA.  I asked if they had visited Philadelphia and they said, “no, we’re not fans of big cities.”  I’m not a city guy either but if I’m driving 14 hours and my choices are Lancaster or Philadelphia, ah never mind.

The Amish go to their own schools from 1st to 8th grade.  When they turn 14 – that’s it, no more education – it’s time to work on the farm.  They don’t use electricity.  They do have propane powered lights, refrigerators and stoves.  The girls don’t use buttons (they use pins).  When they get sick, they go to the hospital like everyone else but they pay cash and get a cash discount.  They have phones but not in the house.  And – no Internet.

Our next excursion was to an Amish farm.  Here we learned that the Mennonites and Amish are both German descendants and that the Mennonites broke away from the Amish and are generally less strict with their rules.  The Amish are primarily in Pennsylvania and Ohio but there are Amish and Mennonites in New York and Canada as well.  There is approximately 27,000 Amish living in Pennsylvania.  I asked if it was true that the married men have to wear a beard and the single men are clean shaven.  I was told that this was a popular misconception.   When the kids turn 16 they enter a “Rumspringa” phase

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumspringa where their parents and community relax the typical restrictions.  The young adults are allowed to stay out late and we were told that it’s not uncommon for a buggy to be blaring music from a portable radio at 1am on a Saturday night.  The young adults typically get married around age 21 and that’s when they join the church.  Being a church member requires a beard for the men and 90% of the Amish do join the church.  You are not allowed to quit the church once joining it but if you don’t join it you can still live at home and do your thing without repercussions from the Amish community.

On Sunday we finished a delicious brunch at Loxley’s and headed to the Renaissance Faire.  This was Pirates weekend and it was our first time visiting the Faire.  The concept is that you are in England 500 years ago.  We saw jousting, the repeated firing of a field artillery piece, all kinds of juggling acts, human chess and a blacksmith making a knife.  Somebody asked why the blacksmith had no shirt on and he said that if a hot ember got in his shirt it could take him 5 seconds to get it off and that’s 5 seconds longer than he wanted to burn.  They then asked (of course) “what happens if it goes down your kilt?”  “Then I pull the rip cord and run…”  I can’t make this stuff up…

We also got to do sword fighting.  For $5 you can put on fencing gear from head to toe and have three balloons attached to you; on the top of your head and one on both shoulders.  You get a 6’ foil and you have to pop your opponent’s balloons before yours gets popped in order to win.  I took on my boys and it was the highlight of the weekend.  My oldest (Gregory) was the first to have his 3 balloons popped.  Kenny and I faced off and it hit me that I could not win this match under any circumstance.  After Kenny was down to his last balloon I was sticking my face out, sword down as Kenny (my 4’7″ 95lb 8 year old) repeatedly rained down haymakers about my upper torso and ultimately defeated me.  It was so much fun and just a little scary.  Gregory asked me later, “Did Kenny really beat you?”

So now it’s back to tennis–  it should be fun and it should also help me get in better shape!

When all was said and done, the Philadelphia District was the big winner sending 7 teams to Nationals including: 2.5 women, 3.0 women, 3.0 men, 3.5 women, 4.0 women, 5.0 women and 5.0 men.  An 8th could be the Delaware 4.5 men’s team which is comprised of almost all Philly players.  This is the team I’m on.

Here’s how things went down from a players perspective.  The weekend started off with rain and thus indoor tennis.  The most fearsome team we faced was New Jersey and we played them first on Friday morning.  We did not have one of our top doubles team but we did have a solid lineup.  This was our toughest match and we dropped only 8 total games on the two singles courts with Ollie “All-in” Jones and John Ellis winning in convincing fashion.  At doubles, Ryan Gargullo and Jared Howat had a wonderful win 4&3 at 1st doubles and it also looked like we’d win 3rd doubles, at least when I walked away after the first set.  In the end I have to give credit to NJ for winning a match they shouldn’t have.  Joe Ferry and Jason Goldman-Petri (JGP) were seemingly in control of the match.  We won the first set, lost the 2nd set but took control at 7-3 in the match tiebreaker before we hit an out ball which would have made it 8-3.  We ended up losing the match tiebreaker 18-16 with both teams saving multiple match points.  This was a really great match to watch and fortunately for us we had already secured the team win for a great start to the weekend.  Of note, NJ was missing what may be their top doubles team in Gino and Chris Carosella.  This could have made things a bit more interesting depending upon who they may have matched up against.

The 2nd of five matches for Delaware during the weekend was Central which is the team that the captain of Delaware was playing for – Chris Kyper.  And, yes, you read that correctly.  Delaware took all five courts against Central and Chris wasn’t in the lineup.  Delaware was off to a strong 2-0 start along with the Pittsburgh team.  Central and Eastern were both 1-1 and Philly & NJ brought up the rear as both were 0-2.  If you are familiar with previous sectional championships you know that this is completely inverted from the usual standings.
The Delaware team celebrated at a gazebo like structure at Staybridge Suites and most of us went to the player’s banquet for dinner and drinks.  I think the entire team danced a song or two.  Trevor Anderson and Ryan Gargullo are great to see on the dance floor.

On Saturday I donned my coordinators hat and worked with Jay Witmer at the Princeton University site.  This was one of three sites where Sectional championships were held and this is where the 3.0, 4.5 and 5.0 women along with 2.5 men played.  Although I missed my own team’s matches Saturday, I wasn’t available to play for my Delaware team due to my wrist injury (not that they needed my services to succeed).  One funny thing that happened Saturday involved a 3.0 woman who had just won her first ever sectionals match.   She was in a very good mood as she came off court and headed to the tournament desk to return the balls and report the scores.  I saw the end of her match as it was close to the tournament desk and when she arrived I commented “nice win” and put both my hands out , palms up to receive the used tennis balls she was returning.  She quickly put the balls down and slapped my hands as I surprisingly stated, “I just wanted the balls.”  “Oh” she said sheepishly, “I’m a Kindergarten teacher; I give lots of high fives.”

Meanwhile, my team dispatched of Eastern PA Saturday morning taking all five courts and prepared for the fourth match which would decide who wins Sectionals, the battle of the then 3-0 teams, Delaware and Pittsburgh.  Delaware prevailed 4-1 with a stunning straight sets victory at 1st doubles by Trevor Anderson and JGP.  It was a phenomenal win for two guys who had never played before against a winning sectionals team that have played together for 10 years.  We won singles and in fact did not lose a singles court all weekend.  Delaware has 6 singles players qualified for Nationals that are easily capable of winning National level matches.  The depth of this team is impressive.

On Sunday, Delaware played the Philly team which is also captained by Chris Kyper.  We were 4-0 and needed only to win 1 court (or a loss of 1 court by Pittsburgh) to clinch a trip to Nationals.  The matches were very entertaining as everybody knows each other.   Nick Gallagher (playing for Philly) faced Alex Tanzio (Delaware) and the first set was an absolute nail biter.  Alex started out dressed in Sniper Blue and ended up in his familiar red outfit.  After pulling out the win we asked Alex, “why the mid-match match wardrobe switch?” “Oh, way to close for Blue” was the answer.  Delaware won the match 4-1 ending the tournament with a perfect 5-0 team record.  Delaware dropped only 4 doubles courts in 25 individual matches.  Simply amazing.

Next up is Nationals in Tucson Arizona October 28th – 30th.  It’s impossible to predict what will happen there but I think this team has a reasonable chance.

Best All-time:

Ender’s Game (1985) – Orson Scott Card
Sequels:Speaker for the Dead (1986), Xenocide (1991),  Children of the Mind (1996)
Shadow of the Hegemon (2001) – related story to the Ender series, Peter and Val’s life without Ender
Ender’s Shadow (1999) – super book – a parallax, the same story as Ender’s Game told from a different character’s (Bean’s) perspective

The Hunt for Red October (1984) – Tom Clancy, This is Clancy’s first published novel. CIA analyst Jack Ryan assists in the defection of a respected Soviet naval captain, along with the most advanced ballistic missile submarine of the Soviet fleet. Remember when the primary threat in the world was the Soviets?

Tom Clancy is my favorite author.  His books inter-relate and they should be read in order:

Red Storm Rising (1986)
Patriot Games (1987)
The Cardinal of the Kremlin (1988)
Clear and Present Danger (1989)
The Sum of All Fears (1991)
Without Remorse (1993)
Debt of Honor (1994)
Executive Orders (1996)

The Firm (1991) – John Grisham

I like most John Grisham’s work and primarily his earlier books – my favorites include:

A Time to Kill (1989)
The Pelican Brief (1992)
The Client (1993)
The Rainmaker (1995)
The Runaway Jury (1996)
The Partner (1997)
                           The Street Lawyer (1998)
                           The Testament (1999)

A Short History of Nearly Everything (2003) – Bill Bryson, I’d call this “Physics for Dummies.”  This is a book that explains our knowledge of how old the universe is and helps you grasp difficult to understand concepts.  For instance, what is the size of an atom?  Bryson explains, “how many atoms are in your hand?”  Answer, if you filled the Pacific Ocean with ping pong balls; there are more atoms in your hand than it would take to fill the Pacific Ocean with ping pong balls.  Or in other words – they are really, really small.

The Poet (1996) – Michael Connelly If you like Murder Mysteries this is my favorite. An old-fashioned page turner. A bare bones summary would be a Denver reporter loses his twin brother cop to suicide, purportedly over an unsolved homicide. As he copes, the reporter learns about a number of police suicides, with several seeming related. At that point in the novel, it becomes a struggle to put the book down.  You won’t want to be bothered by anything else for a few hours.

 General:

The Ditchdigger’s Daughters (2002) – Yvonne Thorton, amazing success story of a black man raising 6 daughters with a single-minded devotion to his family
Thunderstruck (2006) – Erik Larson, the coming of wireless                        
The Devil in the White City (2004) – Erik Larson, 1893 World’s fair and a murder mystery
A Fine Balance (1995) – Rohinton Mistry, about the caste system and discrimination in India – terrific
The Da Vinci Code (2003) – Dan Brown, if you get the riddles in this book you are smarter than me
The Poisonwood Bible (1998) – Barbara Kingsolver, a missionary family with 4 daughters moves from Georgia to the Congo in 1960
Angela’s Ashes (1996) – Frank Mccourt, growing up poor in Ireland and Brooklyn
Trinity (1976) – Leon Uris, story of Ireland from the famine in 1840s to the Easter Rising of 1916 – incredible!
Exodus (1958) – Leon Uris, the founding of the state of Israel
The Kite Runner (2003) – Khaled Hosseini, growing up in Afghanistan
The Screwtape Letters (1942) – C.S. Lewis, a classic written from a senior demon to a lesser “tempters’” perspective
The Help (2009) – Kathryn Stockett, story told by housemaids in Mississippi in 1962
Cutting for Stone (2009) – Abraham Verghesee, must read – fantastic, a few words doesn’t do it justice
Thank You for Smoking (1994) – Christopher Buckley, a tobacco lobbyist with a satirical gift
Aztec (1980) – Gary Jennings, the extraordinary story of the last and greatest native civilization of North America
The Lightning Thief (2005) – Rick Riordan, awesome, suitable for kids, teaches Greek mythology
The Book Thief (2006) – Markus Zausk, Death himself narrates the World War II-era story of Liesel Meminger
Switch (2010) – Dan Heath, Chip Heath, people hate change – this is the study of change
Atlas Shrugged (1957) – Ayn Rand – amazingly applicable to today’s politics
The Watchers (1987) – Dean Koontz, wild story, I really like this book
Beautiful Boy (2008) – David Sheff, depressing but worthwhile, about a father who’s son has a meth addiction
The Color of Water (1997) – James McBride, a testament to good values and a strong will
tuesdays with Morrie (1997) – Mitch Albom, inspirational story of a man dying with a proper perspective on life
The Lincoln Lawyer (2005) – Michael Connelly, fun story

 Business/Self Help/Psychology/Nutrition:

In the Plex (2011) – Steven Levy, 2011 update of the founding and current state of Google
Good to Great ( 2001) – Jim Collins, taking your business to the next level                 
The Search (2005) – John Battelle, Coming of Google
Never Eat Alone (2005) – Keith Ferrazzi – the business networking how-to guide
Winning (2005) – Jack Welch – ex CEO of GE
The World is Flat (2005)  – Thomas Friedman, modern economics
Freakonomics (2005) – Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, why people/economics turn out the way they do
Sharkproof (1994) – Harvey Mackay, finding and keeping the job you really want – essential reading
Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive (1996) – Harvey Mackay, Outsell, Outmanage, Outmotivate, and Outnegotiate Your Competition – says it all
7 Habits of Highly Successful People (1990) – Dr. Steven Covey, could be in the All-time category
Rich Dad Poor Dad (2000) – Robert Kiyosaki, the Bible for personal finances, what to teach your kids about money
Speak Up with Confidence (2002) – Jack Valenti, Public Speaking, If Jack Kennedy got nervous before a speech, it’s OK if you do too
How to Win Friends and Influence People (1990) – Dale Carnegie, People skills 101 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influence_People
Skinny Bitch (2005) – Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin, a wonderful diet/nutrition book and no you don’t have to become a Vegan as they suggest
The Omnivore’s Dilemma (2006) – Michael Pollan,  Informative even if you disagree
Do Gentlemen Really Prefer Blondes? (2008) – Jena Pincott, explains so much, psychology/genetics, the science behind sex, love and attraction

History/Biographies:

The Great Bridge (1983) – David McCullough  (AWESOME – building of the Brooklyn Bridge), I wish I was a structural engineer!
The Devil We Know (2008) – Robert Baer, Iran is the next Super Power, this is what you need to know               
Flags of Our Fathers (2000) – James Bradley and Ron Powers, WWII invasion of Iwo Jima
Sleeping With the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude (2003) – Robert Baer, terrific and believable from an ex-CIA operative;  fundemental knowledge needed about Saudi Arabia
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1960) – William Shirer, for those who love Military History like me
Civil War: Narrative (1986) - Shelby Foote, Long winded yes, but the best there is.
Charlie Wilson’s War (2003) – George Crile, American funding for Afghanistan vs. Russia
The Last Lion: Winston Churchill (1988) – William Manchester, fantastic, Churchill was a remarkable man
Team of Rivals (2005) – Doris Kearns Goodwin, about Abraham Lincoln, inspirational
Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (2003) – Walter Isaacson, terrrific
The Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant (1999) – Ulysses S. Grant, very interesting

Sports:

Positively 5th Street (2003) – James McManus, about Texas Hold’em and the World Series of Poker              
Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend  (2010) – James Hirsch, biography – powerful
Born to Run (2009) – Christopher McDougall, about running and really good
Open (2009) – Andre Agassi, biography – moving
The Junction Boys (2009) – Jim Dent, Bear Bryant’s A&M 1954 football team
The Art of Doubles (1994) – Pat Blaskower, essential reading if you play doubles tennis – “90% of doubles matches are won by the team with better court position”

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!!

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 – 21^st 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 3^rd set tiebreaker wins on 2^nd doubles and 3^rd 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 1^st 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 1^st 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 2^nd 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 2^nd and 3^rd 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 2^nd 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…