The Texan - Fall 2023

The Official Publication of the USPTA Texas Division Fall 2023

USPTA TEXAS Won Large Division

of the year!

Inside...

SUMMER RETREAT

WORLD CONFERENCE

JUNIOR GRAN PRIX

REGIONAL DIRECTOR REPORTS

A Message from President, Matt Watson TM

PRESIDENT Matt Watson 8407 Crooked Trail Tyler, Texas 75703 matt@hollytreecc.com REGIONAL VICE PRESIDENT Craig Bell 5201 Westgrove Drive Dallas, Texas 75248 972-931-4950 cbell1360@aol.com 1st VICE PRESIDENT Mel McRee 3400 Mesa Road Lubbock, Texas 79403 806-786-2660 Mel@lubbockcc.org 2nd VICE PRESIDENT Kelly Marshall 2510 Onion Creek Parkway Austin, Texas 78747 kmarshall@onioncreekclub.com 3rd VICE PRESIDENT Adrien Chabria 5712 Palo Pinto Ave. Dallas, TX 75206 214-232-5237 ajchabria@me.com SECRETARY Michelle Stallard 3500 Woodhaven Drive Midland, Texas 79707 512-924-7097 michellestallardhome@gmail.com TREASURER Ernie Abraham 13765 Southern Oaks Dr. Burleson, Texas 76028 817-980-9374 abrahamernie@yahoo.com PAST PRESIDENT Jenny Gray 901 Sonterra Blvd San Antonio. Texas 78258 512-930-3783 jgray@clubatsonterra.com EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Tosha Smith 8003 Greenslope Dr. Austin, TX 78759 512-848-0598 tosha.smith@uspta.org

We certainly endured a HOT Texas summer and I’m certain all of us are ready for cooler temps on the tennis courts this Fall! Tennis has maintained great participation numbers and we have seen 3 straight years of growth in our industry. While pickleball continues to grow and Padel is also exploding in the United States, let us remember that tennis (23.6 million) has more players than pickleball, badminton, racquetball and squash combined (roughly 20 million). We as tennis professionals must be sure to continue to meet the growing demands of our tennis players, as well as the growing demand of other racquet sports at our clubs. It is an exciting time in the racquet sports industry, and we must continue to evolve and grow as racquet sports professionals to expand our club opportunities and programs. USPTA now offers certification in tennis, pickleball and padel. Kelly Marshall, our Pickleball Certification tester for USPTA Texas has done an incredible job and Texas has certified more pickleball professionals thus far in 2023 than any other division! We will also now have two Texas Division Coach Developers (Tom Ingram and Sarah Flood) who will be capable of getting our tennis teaching applicants through the pipeline quicker as they will have more access to testing opportunities.

We recently returned from the USPTA World Conference where I am happy to announce USPTA Texas won Large Division of the Year. This is a testament to all the Texas pros that support our programs, the volunteers who help run them, and the board who plans and executes these events. Much credit needs to go to our Executive Director, Tosha Smith, who organized and submitted a 200+ page proposal to National that included all the events, education, newsletter information, etc. that we provide throughout the year. This award would not have been possible without her tireless effort!

Next year’s USPTA World Conference will be at the Westin Rancho Mirage Golf and Spa in southern California September 19-25, 2024. Be sure to start planning now for Kona, Hawaii in 2025 at the Outrigger Resort and Spa September 20-25, 2025! Let’s get loud and proud for Texas at these next two Conferences!

We had another FANTASTIC and FUN weekend at Newks for our annual Jr. Gran Prix event in September with roughly 200 juniors participating. This is certainly a highlight of the year for a lot of these kids and the pros/volunteers that run the event ensure they not only enjoy competitive matches but have a lot of fun doing it. This event would not be possible without an immense amount of effort from so many of our pros around the state who run Jr. Gran Prix teams and circuits in their respective areas. We owe a great deal of gratitude to all those that support this terrific program. We also owe a BIG thank you to USPTA Texas board members Craig Bell and AJ Chabria for once again coordinating and running a terrific event that weekend. They certainly put in a ton of hours leading up to this event and then of course a long weekend of running the tournament. Thank you to all our volunteers, as well, that helped during the weekend.

We have already been busy organizing our 2024 USPTA Texas Conference that will be held in Las Colinas, TX February 9-11 at the Omni Las Colinas Hotel. We have commitments from several speakers already and will work on finalizing our lineup and agenda in the next couple months.

It has been a privilege and an honor to serve as USPTA Texas president over the past 4 years. The ability to give back to something that has given me so much is truly rewarding. We have an amazing board that will continue to do an amazing job for USPTA Texas in the years to come and I look forward to continuing to be involved as much as I can with our great organization.

Regards, Matt S. Watson, USPTA Elite Professional

DATES that

RATE COMMITTEE CHAIRPERSONS Awards | Mel McRee Buying Show Chair | Ernie Abraham Division Conference | Kelly Marshall

NOVEMBER 1-3

LEVEL 2 TENNIS CERTIFICATION WORKSHOP THE CLUB AT SONTERRA (SAN ANTONIO)

11

TEXAS TENNIS HALL OF FAME BANQUET TEXAS SPORTS HALL OF FAME (WACO)

Education | Adrien Chabria

DECEMBER

Ethics/Legal | Tommy Connell

8 – 10 TEXAS TENNIS COACHES

Diversity & Inclusion | TBD

ASSOCIATION CONVENTION

Finance | Ernie Abraham

HORSESHOE BAY RESORT

Jr. Development | Craig Bell & Adrien Chabria

TM

(HORSESHOE BAY)

Lessons for Life | Dennis Reblin Long-Range Planning | Jenny Gray Membership | Tom Ingram National Convention | Jim Sciarro Nominating | Jo Keene

JANUARY 19 – 21 USPTA TEXAS ADULT LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIPS VARIOUS INDOOR FACILITIES (HOUSTON)

Regional Directors | Craig Bell Sport Science | Bob Haugen Pickleball Testing & Certification | Kelly Marshall USPTA Adult Leagues | Jenny Gray Elevate | Eli Sepulveda USTA Liaison | Fred Viancos

FEBRUARY 8 – 11 USPTA TEXAS 2024 ANNUAL CONVENTION OMNI (LAS COLINAS)

FROM AROUND THE STATE

Regional Director’s Reports Kelly Marshall Junior Team Tennis is underway! Austin area professionals and the Capital Area Tennis Association work together to provide great opportunities for local juniors to compete in grassroot match play.

AUSTIN

Congratulations to Beverly Bowes for her new role at Cimarron Hills CC in Georgetown, Mike Cancino moves from Twin Creeks to Riverplace CC which are both Arcis Golf Clubs. Twin Creek CC is now taking applications for Director of Tennis.

Brian Lusson will be retiring at the end of the year after more than thirty-five years as Director of Tennis at Westwood Country Club. He will certainly be missed in the tennis community, but we wish him all the best.

The Austin team won USPTA Gran Prix for larger cities. Great job by the coaches, and a special thanks to the USPTA members who ran the tournament and sites!

Brandon Carlson Fall Tennis is in full swing in the Brazos Valley! The Brazos Valley Tennis Association is launching their Ladies Leagues this week, including a new league aimed at 2.0/2.5 level players. The City of College Station tennis programs have begun as well, with 133 players enrolled in lessons or league play for the Fall.

BRAZOS VALLEY

Progress is still being made on the design and execution of bond approved re-development of the tennis courts at Bee Creek & Central Parks in College Station. We anticipate construction on these courts will begin in 2024. Additionally, the City of Bryan has entered into an agreement with Texas A&M University for the development of a sixcourt indoor facility in Midtown Park. The courts will be available for public use when not reserved for Texas A&M matches. Construction is slated to be completed in Fall 2025.

FROM AROUND THE STATE

Regional Director’s Reports Julian Curatella

CENTRAL TEXAS

Summer camp was a huge success even with the record high heat. We saw over 250 kids during the summer with many never having experienced tennis before. Our NJTL high school players helped with the younger kids and our adult volunteers helped the high school players. We were able to keep this a free camp through grant funds and donations. The hard work and summer fun has paid off. Our NJTL high school has won two team matches this season so far. The school had not won a team match in the last eight years so this is a tremendous boost to the self-esteem of the players. Many thanks to the adult volunteers that braved the heat.

Our adaptive program is growing. We routinely have 13 players at practice. Fellowship and growing friendships are a large part of the program but we are getting down to serious practice with our Texas Tennis Museum & Hall of Fame Unified Doubles Tournament coming up on October 28th. Our NJTL high school players have volunteered to be playing partners, ball crew, face painters and cheerleaders for the event.

Our team of 16 kids had a wonderful time at the Junior Gran Prix State Championship at John Newcombe’s Tennis Ranch. USPTA does an excellent job making this a fun competition for our kids. Thanks to Craig Bell, A. J. Chabria, and the rest of the USPTA staff for giving our kids this opportunity. We ended up in second place in our flight.

Locally, the kids played a series of seven tournaments and the kids with the most points at the end of the tournament series made up our team. Ridgewood Country Club hosted team practices. This tournament is the highlight of our tennis year.

Our USTA Men’s 4.5 18+ team is headed to Nationals! We are super proud of their commitment to bring home the Sectional win. We know they will represent us well. Good luck, Team Waco!

TM

FROM AROUND THE STATE

Regional Director’s Reports Gerry Maingot

CORPUS CHRISTI

It was a very hot-hot-hot successful summer in the Texas Coastal Bend, not one rainy day. Despite the heat and the drought tennis is booming in Corpus Christi – we cannot wait for fall to arrive. HEB Tennis Center under the direction of Gerald Tjon-a-joe along with the CCTA ran a very successful 18 & Over and 40 & Over Little State Tournament with over 850 players participating. HEB will now host the USTA Combo Sectionals in October.

Tennis Success, which is the Corpus Christi Area’s Local NJTL Chapter serving at-risk and underserved youth has recently completed their 9-month residency at the old Mary Carroll High School. Tennis Success brokered an arrangement with the Corpus Christi Independent School District to lease eight tennis courts, a portable classroom, and a 5,000 square foot metal building to house the program. The agreement states that the facility must also be used as a Community Center benefiting the Coastal Bend Area. USPTA Elite Professional Ken DeKoning is heading up the advanced program and USPTA Pro Kristy Hardcastle oversees the beginner and intermediate kids. Kristy also recently completed her USPTA Pickle Ball Certification and is programming and giving lessons in that area.

Corpus Christi Country Club Pros – Zack Williams, Jelena Williams and Celia Rodrigues traveled with Team Corpus Christi to Newks for the USPTA Junior Gran Prix State Tournament – fun was had by all. Corpus Christi Country Club was honored at the US Open by the USTA at its Annual Outstanding Facility Awards Program. Attending the event were Gerry Maingot, Zach and Jelena Williams. Zack Williams is currently organizing the Fall Junior Team Tennis Program. Lenson Smith is knee deep in USTA Leagues, USPTA Fall League and the Sets and Sangria Social League along with all his tennis lessons at the club.

NorthShore Country Club is excited about the growth of their tennis and pickleball programs. Bobby Hagerman – Director of Tennis stated that membership is also growing as more industry is relocating to the area.

Ken DeKoning and Kristy Hardcastle with Tennis Success

Corpus Christi Country Club Outstanding Facility of the Year

FROM AROUND THE STATE

Regional Director’s Reports Adrien Chabria

What a summer in North Texas!

Bad news, we are losing two brilliant USPTA members to other divisions! Kati Gyulai, speaker/presenter at the 2023 USPTA Texas Annual Conference, and Guest on Season 1 Episode 14 of the At The Net Podcast, has taken a director’s position in Michigan. Sujay Lama, recent winner of the USPTA Texas College Coach of the Year Award has left the UNT, and heads the coaching staff at Arkansas State University. May they brighten Michigan and Arkansas in the way they served our great state of Texas.

DALLAS

Great news: TCU and SMU hosted ITA, UTR Pro and ITF events this past summer. So much top tennis to discover, in addition to the Texas Tennis Classic in Waco, the ATX Open in Austin, and the ATP Dallas Open in Dallas.

More great news capping a hot summer of tennis in TX: 22 coaches and 171 Junior players represented Dallas, Fort Worth, The Woodlands, Houston, Waco, Midland, San Antonio, Austin, East Texas, The Valley, and Corpus Christi, in the USPTA Texas Junior Gran Prix State Championships at the historic and iconic John Newcombe Tennis Ranch in New Braunfels. Cheers to Craig Bell, the event’s tireless co-director, Special thanks to Adam Tuna Rodriquez and the staff at Newk’s, for the hospitality. Kudos to Michelle Ash, Debbie Lowry, and our wonderful Executive Director, Tosha Smith for running a highly polished, professional tournament on each of the courts.

Cheers to all the coaches, parents, grandparents, siblings, and fans in attendance. We are talking about almost a thousand people over two days of junior tennis! Congratulations to the MVPs (most valuable professionals) from Team Houston (Ara Schmaltz and Justin Hensley in the Kangaroo flight), and from Team Corpus Christi (Zach Williams and Jelena Williams in the Gorillas flight).

Massive congratulations to both teams winning the vaunted ACE Award (Attitude, Conviviality, and Effort).

Gorillas ACE Award: The Valley Kangaroos ACE Award: Fort Worth Here’s to your 2023 Finalists: Kangaroos: San Antonio Gorillas: Waco

Here’s to your 2023 Champions: Kangaroos: Austin Gorillas: Midland

Congratulations to the good folks at Lifetime Fitness in Plano, TX on the 2022 USTA outstanding facility award. Five outdoor courts, ten indoor courts, world-class fitness, and a viewing area fit for members to host many huge events, like Smashing Childhood Cancer, and the benefit for Emily’s Place. Well done, well deserved, Lifetime!! Here is a photo of tennis manager, Umang Chadda.

FROM AROUND THE STATE

Regional Director’s Reports Laura Gilbert The FWPTA met on August 18th and handed each of their members a FWPTA logo’d shirt. They discussed adult league and junior offerings and how to work together to improve all events.

FORT WORTH

Kelly Landon was voted the best high school coach in Texas.

Oakmont has a team invited to participate in a national Pickleball event. The Fort Worth area is proud to have two pros being inducted into the Texas Tennis Hall of Fame in Waco on Nov 11-Ken Crawford (posthumously) and Laura Gilbert.

FROM AROUND THE STATE

Regional Director’s Reports Dan Cantu

SAN ANTONIO

The fall season in San Antonio has brought an exciting buzz to the tennis community. With over 130 teams participating in the various leagues, including USTA, UTR, and SAPTA leagues. High School tennis teams are deep into their district play and getting ready to make some deep runs toward the state playoffs in November. We cannot forget about our college teams, most have completed their Fall season, with a few making the national ITA tournament in Georgia. Good luck to all teams and players in the playoffs.

The Legend Barry Mills, Director of Tennis at the Dominion Country Club for 34 years has retired. Truly a Dominion Staple we appreciate the dedication you have given Dominion and the tennis community of San Antonio. Thanks Barry Mills.

Andy Carter

VALLEY

The 2023 Harlingen Country Club $25,000 Men’s Pro Circuit ITF World Tour Tennis Tournament is scheduled for October 23-29. This will be the 20th anniversary. The Main draw wild card doubles tournament will be held October 21-23. The winning team will get a direct entry into the main draw. Singles qualifying will be October 23-24 and the main draw singles and doubles will start on October 24. Some of the proceeds will benefit The Sunny Glen Children’s Home of San Benito.

The Rio Grande Valley Tennis Association put on another successful summer USPTA Junior Gran Prix series of tournaments. It culminated with the state tournament at The John Newcombe Tennis Ranch September 10-12.

TM

USPTA TEXAS SUMMER RETREAT Recap August 4 – 5, 2023

The USPTA Texas Summer Retreat was held in August at the Club at Sonterra in San Antonio. The event kicked off on Friday morning with Ken DeHart from San Jose, California who spoke on ways to improve your coaching and player performance. Following lunch, the afternoon included a tennis drill share, golf, and an evening event at Grimaldi’s Pizzeria.

The Saturday conference began with a session by Michelle Stallard (Midland) on Tennis Drills & Games for Private Lessons. Gerry Maingot (Corpus Christi) offered a session on Building Strategy into your Lessons. The afternoon session was presented by Kelly Marshall (Austin) on Pickleball Drills & Games. To cap off the day, we gathered for a fun evening at the Rebecca Creek Distillery.

Thanks to those that were able to attend this year’s retreat. If you did not come this year, plan to come next year to enjoy the fun. Thank you to our board member Jenny Gray for hosting us at her facility.

This was a fun-filled weekend with seminars, tennis, golf, pickleball, and social events and a great time was had by all.

USPTA TEXAS JUNIOR GRAN PRIX STATE CHAMPIONSHIPS

Presented by Fontana Financial The USPTA Texas Junior Gran Prix State Championships were held at the John Newcombe Tennis Ranch in New Braunfels on September 9 -10, 2023. Thank you to Patrick Fontana with Fontana Financial for being the presenting sponsor.

We had over one hundred seventy (170) junior tennis players registered for the championships representing eleven (11) areas around the state, including teams from Austin, Corpus Christi, Dallas, East Texas, Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio, Rio Grande Valley, Waco, West Texas, and The Woodlands.

Co-tournament directors, Craig Bell and Adrien Chabria, did a wonderful job organizing and directing the event. Of course, thank you to all the tennis professionals around the state for their support and dedication to working with these young players and sending teams to the championships. The young players always appear to have great fun and tough match play. A special thank you to our tireless tournament volunteers, Michelle Ash (Austin) and Debbie Lowry (San Antonio).

Austin took home first place in the Kangaroo Flight and San Antonio came in second place. In The Gorilla Flight, first place went to West Texas (Midland) with second place going to Waco. The Third Annual A.C.E. Awards (Attitude, Character, and Effort) were presented to the Valley team from the Gorilla Flight and the Fort Worth team in the Kangaroo Flight. The Second Annual “MVP” Award for the Most Valuable Professional was presented to Zach Williams and Jelena Williams from Corpus Christi and Ara Schmaltz and Justin Hensley from Houston.

USPTA Texas Pros attend WORLD CONFERENCE The USPTA World Conference was held on September 24- 28 at the Rosen Shingle Creek in Orlando, Florida and was attended by thirty-five (35) USPTA Texas professionals. This was a great conference with excellent speakers and educational seminars.

USPTA Texas Division took home top honors by receiving the best large division of the year award. Kelly Marshall (Austin) was awarded the Industry Excellence Award.

In addition to the educational seminars, USPTA Texas leaders attended the national executive committee meeting. The USPTA Texas Division party was held on Tuesday evening at Drive Shack where everyone had a wonderful time! A big “Thank You” to the national staff for organizing a fantastic conference.

Kelly Marshall

AWARDED 2023 USPTA INDUSTRY EXCELLENCE AWARD

and named MASTER PROFESSIONAL

at 2023 World Conference

LAKE NONA, Fla., Sept. 28, 2023 - The United States Professional Tennis Association, Inc. (USPTA) is proud to present the 2023 USPTA Industry Excellence Award to Kelly Marshall of Austin, Texas (Texas Division), and name her a USPTA Master Professional.

Becoming a USPTA Master Professional is the highest rating achievable by a tennis professional. Qualified applicants must hold an Elite Professional rating for 10 years, complete the required number of education hours and fulfill a broad spectrum of industry service. The Master Professional Committee makes the final decision on the review of applicants.

Marshall’s leadership and creative programming as the director of racket sports have made a Texas sized difference at Onion Creek Club. Through charitable events like Serving Up a Cure, The Pink Pickleball Tournament and more, Marshall reinvigorated the racquets program in her community and surrounding area. Marshall helped raise $8,000 during a new fundraiser, Let’s Pickle for LLS, in support of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. She also offered low-cost junior tennis events and a program called “Active U” that introduces tennis and pickleball to beginners.

“This is a special year for Kelly as she achieves not only the USPTA Master Professional classification, our highest level of certification, but also the USPTA Industry Excellence Award for the great work she is doing as a pickleball coach developer and as a local leader in Texas,” USPTA CEO John Embree said.

Scholarship Recipients We had three USPTA Texas Tennis Professionals who

received a scholarship to cover the registration fee for the 2023 World Conference. The scholarship funds were designated to support certified USPTA tennis professionals in the 30 & under age category. The funds were donated by a generous USPTA Texas member.

Armando Garcia

Allison Pavlansky

Lenson Smith

CRAIG’S CORNER A big Texas sized “Howdy” to all of you out there who are reading this latest edition of Craig’s Corner. I hope everyone’s fall is off to a great start with lessons and activities aplenty!

Following are my latest thoughts, mental musings and other such mind-bending nuggets to digest for you, the faithful --- hope you enjoy!

On the Lonestar scene I wanted to say a huge “Texas Thanks” to all those USPTA Texas Tennis Professionals (plus players /parents /volunteers) who made the USPTA Texas Jr Gran Prix State Championships Presented

by Fontana Financial a success in September at the “iconic” venue of Newks Tennis Ranch in New Braunfels.

Right at 176 junior tennis players participated representing eleven cities/areas from all over the state -East Texas, The Woodlands, Corpus Christi, San Antonio, Dallas, Ft Worth, West Texas, Waco, The Valley, Austin, and Houston (welcome back – first year in a long time!). After the dust settled and all was said and done in The Kangaroo Flight the team Winner was Austin (2nd year in a row) and the Finalists were from San Antonio. In The Gorilla Flight, the team Winner was from West Texas (Midland) with the Finalists from Waco. Our Third Annual A.C.E. Awards (Attitude, Conviviality and Effort) were presented to the teams from The Valley in the Gorilla Flight and the team from Ft Worth in the Kangaroo Flight. At the end of the Jr Gran Prix, we presented our Second Annual “MVP” Award which represented the Most Valuable Professional. This year’s winners were as follows: in the Gorilla Flight Zach & Jelena Williams from Corpus Christi took top honors and in the Kangaroo Flight the award went to Ara Schmaltz and Justin Hensley from Houston. I would be remiss if I did not mention those tournament volunteers who helped run the tournament desks with grace, skill and efficiency. They were Michelle Ash, Debbie Lowry

and our fearless leader, Tosha Smith – many, many “Thanks” for your efforts!! Also, a huge “Thanks” goes out to the company who financially helped support this event. We could not have put on an event of this magnitude without our Presenting Sponsor, Patrick Fontana with Fontana Financial. And lastly, “Many Thanks” to my fellow co-tournament director, AJ Chabria for his guidance, leadership, and conviviality for the past four years!! This was truly a Great Event, Great Time with Great People Playing and Honoring the GREAT GAME!!

On the National Front, how about the US Open 2023! A very robust record attendance took place at this year’s tournament and here are a few records that were set that you might have missed. a. The US Open smashed single-session and daily attendance records in 2023, becoming the first Grand Slam to welcome more than 950,000 spectators over a three-week period. b. The US Open welcomed 957,387 fans over the 20 days encompassing both the main draw and US Open Fan Week, a nearly 8% increase over 2022. The tournament’s 2023 main-draw attendance was a US Open record 799,402, including sellouts in all 25 sessions in Arthur Ashe Stadium. for the second year in a row. c.

Both the men’s (28,804) and women’s championship (28,143) sessions were the highest-attended championship sessions in US Open history. d. To start the second week, the tournament set a new Labor Day weekend record in attendance, with 201,787 fans coming to the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center over three days—the first time that the holiday weekend crowd topped 200,000. e. The number came after the first week of the main draw saw an overall attendance of 502,385, marking the first time that Week 1 eclipsed 500,000 fans. f. On Wednesday’s Day 3, the tournament eclipsed 73,000 in singleday attendance for the first time in event history, as 73,007 fans came through the gates at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. g.

This all followed a historic Fan Week, where more than 150,000 fans came through the grounds from Aug. 22 through Aug. 27. US Open Fan Week attendance rose 41% overall from 2022, where a then-record 111,924 fans enjoyed the free events and entertainment on offer, including the US Open Qualifying Tournament. h.

Arthur Ashe Kids’ Day on Aug. 27 also set an all-time attendance record of 40,868, breaking the previous high of 35,525 set in 2022. I know that there are other ball sports out there in the USA thinking they might overtake the Great Game – well boys and girls, lets just tap the brakes on the thought

that any other ball sports might be over taking the popularity of the Great Game any time soon – these numbers indicate to me that we have a very healthy tennis community whether it be playing or watching!

Internationally Speaking, did anyone catch the Laver Cup action from Vancouver? To this humble author, the sixth edition of the 2023 Laver Cup didn’t quite add up to the previous five offerings as many to most of Team Europe’s “frontline” players were not on hand to represent what has previously been complete domination by Team Europe.

MIA was Joker, Alcarez, Tsisitpas, Zverev, Rune, Sinner and Medvedev – that’s a lot of fire and star power absent in the Great White North. Team World had most of their top players on hand to compete, which definitely helped as Team World defeated Team Europe 13-2. Except for Casper Ruud winning Singles Match #6 on Saturday afternoon, Team World pretty much had a cake walk to victory.

I have enjoyed most all of the previous Laver Cup’s offerings but this one really “double faulted” with me. I wonder why seven of the top Europeans didn’t show up – both The Rocket (Rod Laver) and The King (Roger Federer) were in attendance and one would think, if they are showing up in Vancouver in late September, why wouldn’t these players show up to participate and honor two of the Great’s in our Great Game? I certainly hope the seventh edition of the Laver Cup in 2024 is a little better attended by Team Europe or future Laver Cups could be on some shaky ground. Interested to hear your thoughts and insight on the Laver Cup? Well kids, it’s time to circle the wagons, put out the fire and call in the dogs -until next time, whenever that is, was or could be, Keep Your Eye on the Ball and Don’t Forget the Sunscreen...

CB

cbell1360@aol.com | craigbell@benttreecc.org 214-762-8600 (cell\text)

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