Tennis - Fun, Friendship and Fair Play

AWA Tennis has much to celebrate!

by Jane Kim

Being back on the courts to play doubles, being able to resume tennis clinics, and most of all, we are celebrating the creation of a new-to-us event: Mixed Doubles.

Sandy Hartford and Rob Kabus vs Claire and James McGregor

Mixed Doubles is AWA Tennis’s first event open to AWA members and the male tennis partner of their choice — husband, son, colleague, friend, neighbor. We even heard that in some circles, men were actively advertising their services as a tennis partner for AWA members! Mixed Doubles is proving to be a popular offering, with 36 pairs signed up to participate, creating four different pools who will play six to nine matches over the September to December season.

Trying for the best outfit prize, Alex Lowes and husband

The Tennis Committee is very sorry to see Jo Baughn, organizer extraordinaire of Social Doubles and the Tennis Sub List, leave us and Singapore. We welcome Darcy Cameron and Amanda Allan to our committee as two of the coordinators for Team Tennis and Helen Troncoso as our Bag Tag coordinator. Watch out for our upcoming events in November, December and January:

• Social Doubles is a fun way for beginner and intermediate players to meet lots of tennis-playing ladies. Each week, players are paired up into rotating foursomes to play three mini sets, switching partners at each set so everyone plays with each other.

• Team Tennis is a seasonal competitive offering for intermediate and advanced players where players are grouped into teams who compete with each other over the six week season.

• The annual AWA Tennis Cup for advanced players will finally be played over four days in the week of November 29 after being postponed by Covid in May.

• Doubles Challenge will be back as well, so grab a partner and sign up for this event which culminates in a playoff between the top teams of each pool.

• And last but not least, Discover Tennis Clinics for beginners and intermediates are back on at the courts of our partner, Savitar Tennis Centre. For the latest information, sign up for our tennis-exclusive newsletter. You’ll find the link on the AWA Tennis page. You can also join our Facebook group @AWATennis.

AWA Mixed Doubles Debut

My husband, Dan, and I learned to play tennis together at our last post: Dili, Timor-Leste. The U.S. Embassy in Dili has one of the few courts in the city, and the only lit court in the country. As there was little evening entertainment, playing tennis together became a regular pasttime. It wasn’t until we arrived in Singapore when we realized that doubles tennis is truly a different game — one that involves much more strategy than we had imagined!

Among WITS, LTS, AWA, and clinics around town, I could easily arrange to play every day of the week. Yet, it was challenging to find other couples against whom Dan and I could play tennis. In part to appease Dan’s envy, I suggested to the AWA Tennis Committee that we offer a Mixed Doubles program. And I received a favorable reply from the Chair, Paige Okun, who agreed with one hitch: “Sure, if you organize it.” As a volunteer-led organization, AWA provides the platform for women to find other women with similar interests, provided that someone is willing to organize the event. I love that about AWA: no matter one’s interest, there’s an offering for everyone — and if there isn’t, one can create it.

Andre Bald and Alfa Singkoh faced Minh Tram and Graham O'Brien in one of the first Mixed Doubles matches

This fall 2021, the AWA Tennis Committee piloted this new Mixed Doubles league; we could not have imagined the incredible interest that this new program generated. Because the matches are arranged between opponents at mutually convenient times, the program also appealed to a subset among us: full-time working women. The Tennis Committee hopes to provide more opportunities for full-time working women to participate in additional tennis programs next year.