2015 USTA Philly 18 and over Districts at Frosty Hollow

The Men’s annual USTA Philadelphia 18+ Districts championships were held last weekend at the Frosty Hollow Tennis Center in Levittown, PA at the 3.5, 4.0 and 4.5 levels. This tournament is where the winners of the local league flights at each level face off with the overall winner of Districts advancing to represent Philadephia at the Middle States Sectional championships in Princeton, NJ August 21^st – August 23^rd.  Middle States is comprised of six districts (Philadelphia, Eastern PA, Central PA, Pittsburgh PA, New Jersey and Delaware).  The winner of Sectionals represents the Middle States Section (1 of 17 sections in the country) at Nationals in November.

My Philly men’s 4.0 team, Easy Killer (which is intended to mean “relax there big fella, it’s only tennis”) has advanced numerous times to Districts but we’ve won only once in 2010.  We started the season at 8-0 but in the 9th week we were short staffed for that weekend’s match that we lost dropping us to 8-1.  As a result we then faced an elimination match in the final regular season match vs. the West Chester Warriors captained by Raj Thangaraj.  Due to the tiebreakers, if we were to lose this match, West Chester would have advanced to Districts over Easy Killer.  On two separate days we went 1-1 in the makeup matches winning a doubles court (thanks to Ed Daou & Joe Sassa) and then losing a close singles court to Bobby B.  We then played the final 3 courts together (there are 2 singles and 3 doubles courts in every team match) at Radnor HS.  We lost singles (John Bishop played great against us) and Justin Bussinger & I won our doubles court.  With the team match tied 2-2, we lost the first set on the last doubles court 5-7.  And then John Gassenheimer and Vetri Vel took over against tough opponents going on to win the last two sets 6-1, 6-0 sending Easy Killer to Districts.

At Districts at the 4.0 level there are 4 teams, 3 flight winners (Penn Stare Abington, Philly Phighters, and Easy Killer) and a wild card (Frosty Freeze).  The format is round-robin, you play each team once with the best cumulative record advancing.  On Friday, we played the Frosty Freeze on their home courts without 5 people I would have played if they were available, Ed Daou, Milos Markis, John Gassenheimer, Mel Navea and Bob Woods.  Ed Daou got hurt playing tennis the night before and 2 hours prior is was clear that Ed couldn’t go so we called on Larry Jamieson to fill in.  Larry was 2 hours away and 40′ in the air on a ladder painting.  With paint specs on his hands, Larry made the drive to Levittown just in time and partnered with Joe Sassa to win his court 6-4, 6-4. Justin and I won our court after we went down 0-4 to start the match.  Fortunately we managed to come back and win, 4-6, 6-4, 1-0. This prompted several curious responses from people asking how I did and then looking at me funny, blinking twice and whispering, “you won?”  Mike Weidinger, who went on last, played much of his singles match with overall match team split 2-2 in front of 34 Frosty fans and 3 Easy Killer faithful.  And Mike delivered!  In a hot, sticky two set marathon Mike prevailed 6-4, 7-5 very nice very nice, pretty good pretty good.  Mike moved his opponent to the point of exhaustion for an exciting end to the match. We won 3-2 against a strong team and fun captain Nadine Shaffer.

On Saturday, we played Penn St Abington. We got Ed Daou back and that was key for us.  We dropped both singles courts but swept Penn St Abington at doubles.  Joe Sassa/Ed Daou rocked winning against a tough pair.  Justin and I found a way at #2 doubles and Larry Jamieson/Vetri Vel brought it home at 3rd doubles with the match tied 2-2 and the full team watching. Interestingly, Vetri thought we had already won the team match.  That win made us 2-0 on the weekend, so good so far.

On Sunday we faced the Philly Phighters.  Ed Daou/Joe Sassa had a great win at #1 doubles but unfortunately Justin and I lost #2 doubles in a match tiebreaker.  Larry Jamieson/Vetri Vel won convincingly on 3^rd doubles and we lost a singles court with Brian Hamilton cramping at the start of his match tiebreaker.  So with the match tied 2-2, (same as Friday) Mike Weidinger started his match tiebreaker – first to 10, win by 2.  Down 5-8 in the tiebreaker, Mike reached deep and won the next 5 points. His comeback win sends Easy Killer to Sectionals 8/21 – 8/23 in Princeton, Without Mike’s comeback, would have not advanced due to tiebreakers. Kudos to Joe Sassa and Larry Jamieson for winning all 3 of their matches on the weekend. Ed Daou won 2 huge matches at #1 doubles, Mike was one match tiebreaker away from winning all 3 of his matches (Justin Bussinger and I are in that category too and Vetri Vel won 2 as well).  We all pulled together and I’m thrilled.  I told the team we could not win but not in so many words. Our mottos for the weekend were #YesWeCan #ProveRussellWrong and eventually #MW4MVP.

Pictured above Left to Right, Mike Weidinger, Ed Daou, Russell Chamberlin, Joe (a.k.a Joey Zaza) Sassa, Brian Hamilton, Larry Jamieson and Vetri Vel (missing Justin Bussinger, Andy Macera and Lee Sullivan). Here are the Districts standings.  It was so much closer than it seems.  When I say it’s, “it’s the little things that matter,” they really do.  Winning isn’t about doing anything 100% better, it’s about doing 100 things 1% better.  Ok, I’m off my soapbox.

On to the Ramdomizers. We won our flight during the regular season and there’s only one flight. At 4.5 it’s a four team single-elimination tournament for Districts.  The regular season was so close that last year’s undefeated regular season winner (Logan) finished 5th in the standings.  We won five regular season matches 3-2 and everything was tight.

In the semi-final we faced Germantown who has some great players and we managed to win 3-2 setting up a finale vs. DVTA-Villanova on Sunday. John Ellis won convincingly at #1 singles, Brian Vincent/Nate Geigle played thier best team at #1 and lost a well-played match. Troy Donato (coming off a great win Saturday) took the first set off of Tyler Triolo but lost in a match tiebreaker. Steve Hlava/Tony Deimler won big and with the team match tied 2-2, Eric Fritzges and Chris Kyper won a sensational match with everybody watching 7-5, 6-3 sending the Ramdomizers to Sectionals in August.  What a great team effort. Woot Woot!

Pictured above Left to Right, Nate Geigle, Eric Fritzges, John Ellis, Russell Chamberlin, Tony Deimler, Chris Kyper, Wanzell Flemming, Troy Donato, Brian Vincent, Steve Hlava. What a weekend.  I need rest