Finals and 3 / 4 playoffs were held on Sunday, which was
warm, 90s (the PNW players were melting!) and sunny.
Wende Walter and Gloria Carter hogged the court for well
over three hours in the final RR match in the women’s 65s. Carter was the
steadier player and forged a set and 5-2 lead using consistent groundstrokes
and capitalizing on Walter’s errors. Walter rallied and reined in her errors
enough to eke out the second set 76 and stayed aggressive to win the final set 63.
Manola Colter dominated the field in the 40s, beating Becky
Stapp in the final. Fran Chandler
made a tough draw look easy, beating Kathy Vick
62 60 and Tracy Houk 61 62. the match of the division was the three hour third
place playoff between Vick and Amy Closs-Miller, an aggressive lefty. Vick
rallied from 1-4 30-40 to win the final set 64, altering her strategy slightly
in the final set to win. Carolyn Nichols won the 50s over Bonnie Tetrick, but
the match of that division was a quarterfinal between SoCal’s Lyn Ellis and PNW’s
Brenda Williams. Williams had several match points in the 2nd set
and both had match points in the third set tiebreaker won 10-8 by Williams. Chieko
Holt had no problem winning the 55s over Karen Dunlop. Carmen Almodovar played
well all week, beating Greta Watson in a close 60s final. Irene Bretzel won a
RR in the 70s division.
Doubles winners were: 35s: Jeannie Haskell/Karen Burns; 40s:
Colter/Closs-Miller (who unseeded, beat the top seeds, Kristen Hartley/Jeannie Hulsen
in the semis and Sandoz/Turner in the final; 45s: Houk/Nichols beat
Chandler/Vick in the 45s final in a three hour final. The match was played on
very shadowy court…some sun, some shade, very hard to see volleys…so there were
a lot of moonballs in that match. Houk made some great moves at the net and hit
some key overheads to force the play (really!). Ellis/Tetrick won the 50s; Andi
Polisky/Lianne Bryson won the 55s; Ketchum/Thompson won the 60s in a round
robin; Duckering/Niosi won the 70 doubles; Margaret
Anderson/Joyce Jones won the 75 doubles.The long doubles match caused me to miss my flight (that and the fact that some of the singles matches went long, so we started late), so I rebooked on a 9:30 SW flight…when was delayed till after 11pm…a long day but a fun one. This is a really nice event, lots of amenities for the players, and a beautiful settting.