Results (individual) are here.
It was a long but nice day at Veltri Tennis Center (Plantation, FL) yesterday for the SoCal and Southern 65 teams. We warmed up at 7:45, played at 8:30 and finished around 5pm.
We played Southern which has 10 states (Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North & South Carolina, and Tennessee. Our section is the southern third of California (geographically…though not population wise). In terms of population though, SoCal has about 20 million people vs about 47 million in the Southern section (so not as big a disparity as it seems). And our weather is pretty conducive to tennis year round.
Ann Young at #2 played well and ran better to beat Tina Karwasky 61 62; I beat Sue Bartlett at #1 60 63…the second set was tricky, lots of deuce games, Sue varied her patterns and moved better, and the wind came up (though by Florida standards it was just a light breeze). Una Davis and Bunnie Jackson (Southern) were just starting their third set at #3 singles when I finished and their first two sets were 76 (Una) and 62 (Bunnie), so you can see how long our games were in comparison. Both are lefties, so the morning sun was a factor for both; Bunnie got out to at 4-1 lead, Una rallied to level the set but Bunnie played a solid, smart last two games to put Southern up 2/1. So it was down to the doubles, and both matches were tight. Colleen Ferrell and Betsy Kuhle at #2 had three sets points in the first set which Southern (Jackson and Michelle Spires) won 76; Southern took the second set 64 to win the title. Meanwhile Una and I played on and on and on…three hours, against Bartlett and Anne Frautschi, winning 76 (2) in the third. Una and I crashed into each other (we won that point, probably distracting our opponents), lost the point when Una called mine three times (and I hit the ball anyway, leaving 90% of the court open for the resulting winner), and both teams played various formations…fun match though.
NorCal beat Eastern 4/1 to take bronze.
In the 3/4 playoff between SoCal and NorCal in the 55s, SoCal mixed up their lineup, playing Kathy Settles at #1, Christina Kaus making her debut at #2 and Jen Beindorf at #3. Settles beat Julie Silveira 4,3 Kaus beat Lindsay Montero 5,3 (Kaus ran her into the ground!…great match by both) and Beindorf fell to Lisa Chang 2,3. However, Beindorf/Settles edged Montero and her sister Shelly Bartlett Sweeney 10-8 in a match tiebreak (that was not an option offered to us and it was not a deciding match…hmmm). So SoCal 55s took bronze. Kim Kinberg/Kaus fell to Chang/Barrie Bullmore 5,3 to make the score 3/2.
Mid Atlantic (who beat SoCal 3/2 in the semis), beat Texas 3/2, winning both doubles decisively after going down 2/1 in singles.
The SoCal 80 & 85 teams play for gold today, against Pacific NW (80) and Texas (not Florida) (85). The SoCal 75 team lost to Southern in the semis…the format is 2 singles and 2 doubles, and they tied the match but Liane Bryson won her singles in three sets and Southern won at #2 in straight sets…all other matches were won and lost in straight sets, so they lost on sets won. They play for third today and have had some injuries.
The 35s and 45s teams started play yesterday. I’ll recap the 75/80/85 tonight or tomorrow and the 35/45 on Sunday.
Many thanks to Colleen Ferrell who is the SoCal overall coordinator, our captain, Tina Karwasky, SoCal for helping with costs and to my teammates who are nice players and better people.
The Margaret Russo award went to Fran Chandler (corrected), who wasn’t at intersectionals due to a shoulder injury/surgery, and the Belmar Gunderson award went to Elizabeth Barnhill (added).
And (this is for you Mary, to see if you are still reading)…Mary Mottola had an even larger bandage on her injured leg yesterday (pulled hamstring), her hamstring was purple and she is not going to be playing tennis again any time soon competitively, but hopefully she will be back again before another decade passes. Chris Pearlstein was doing well after having a heart rate spike the first day, and her ekg etc came out fine at the emergency room. So hopefully it was just the heat/humidity etc.
