Tennis Ladies’ Nationals Run

Tennis Talk

By Betty Olsen

What a blast the Villages had at Nationals in Surprise, Arizona!  Let me tell you about it.

 We may not have won, but came close, and may have been the friendliest team with lots of support.  We were the only team with a coach and the only team to bring gifts for our opponents.  7 of us stayed in the team Airb&b 5 minutes from the tournament. With husbands attending, 2 other Airb&bs were used plus hotel rooms

There was a total of 16 teams in the tournament.  Every team had 4 matches, 2 on Friday and 2 on Saturday, and the top 4 teams played semi-finals on Sunday.  No team won all of their matches, but some didn’t win any.  We needed 3 wins to compete for Sunday.

Thursday night all Villagers met at the team house for a potluck dinner and to get ready for our first match at 9:00am Friday against Mo Valley.  Our coach, Brett Foreman, met our 6 players at 7:30am Friday morning for warm-up and we won the match 2-1, thanks to Cheryl Diltz and Julie Hawkinson winning in the 3rd set tiebreak.  Team Gail Tuft and Helen Varenkamp won in 2 sets.

Friday 3:00pm match against Southwest was a nail biter, but we lost 1-2 in a 3rd set tiebreak. At the end of Friday 5 teams were 2-0, 5 teams were 0-2 and we were in the middle with 1-1.  Since we all had such fun at Thursday night’s dinner, it was decided to again meet at the team house, order pizza and salad for Friday night’s dinner.  My daughters, Karen, Diane and Nancy made that happen.  I think we may have had as many at 25 there.   Early to bed by 9:00pm to get ready for Saturday’s 2 matches.
Villages USTA 65+ team at Nationals in Surprise, Arizona.
Tennis Club gathers for dinner at the team house.
Team members at SJC airport get ready to fly to Arizona.
Brett Foreman leads the team in a huddle as he offers last-minute coaching tips.

(to be continued in next Tennis Talk.)

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