Easy Killer advances to Nationals #SneakerGate

Phil and Russell

I captain an 18+ 4.0 men’s USTA tennis team named Easy Killer.  The team name means “whoa, chill big fella, it’s only tennis.”  We won our local league that started in April and then a month ago we won a close match over Germantown CC to win the Philadelphia District and earn a berth into Sectionals.  Our section is Middle States which is comprised of NJ, DE and PA.  The winner of sectionals advances to Nationals to represent Middle States vs. the 16 other sections in the US for the 2017 National Championship.

On Friday, we only played once and we took it on the chin losing our first match to AMD (Pittsburgh) 2-3.  Rain forced us indoors and to play 8 game ad-scoring pro sets.  As I shared with my team, it almost always comes down to the final match on Sunday and we have 4 more matches to go.  We choose how we respond to this challenge…

Saturday was a good day.  We went 9-1 on the day dropping Central 4-1 and New Jersey 5-0.  Sat kudos go to our singles guys Adam Simon and Phil David.  Matt Short had two outstanding performances, Victor Munoz/Henry Kim had another superb W and there was an amazing, 2.5 hour performance by Chris Wasson/guy judkowski at #1 doubles against a solid NJ team.  The top 3 teams after Saturday were Delaware 3-0, AMD (Pittsburgh) 3-1, and Philly (us) 2-1.

#SneakerGate – this changed everything.  On Sat AMD was up 2-0 with wins over Philly & NJ on Friday.  AMD’s match vs. Delaware was tied 2-2 and came down to a match tiebreaker at #2 singles.  Then, the DE player’s shoe came completely apart.  AMD wanted a penalty, a game, or for him to continue.  To that end, their teammates were getting the officials to come to this court.  In a few minutes, someone got the DE singles player’s spare sneaker out his car and the tiebreaker commenced with the officials still in route to the court.  The AMD player was up 9-6 in the match breaker, served, came to net with a putaway volley, holds his racket completely vertical and pushes forward without turning sideways.  He clips the tape with the sure winner and it falls back on his side. DE wins the next 4 points, wins the breaker 11-9 and suddenly we’re alive again and controlling our own destiny.  Had he successfully made the volley, AMD would have been 3-0 with the two weakest teams to play. Or, in other words, it was OVER GOPHER.

Dave R, Chuck Sublett, me & Matt Short

On Sunday we faced Eastern in the morning and Delaware (who was 4-0) at Noon.  Delaware was a superb team and we did well to get past them.  The Delaware team, top to bottom, is just about strongest players, fun guys and best sports you will meet.  The pic on the left was one of the doubles courts (Dave Resurreccion/Chuck Sublett vs. Russell/Matt Short.

Saturday and Sunday combined we won 19 out of 20 courts individual courts (each match is comprised of 2 singles and 3 doubles matches).  This clinched the first tiebreaker (individual team wins) by 8.

Everyone stepped up and was team first.  Well done gents!  Nationals are Oct 13-15th in Surprise, AZ.  What a great group – thank you for the memorable weekend.  Nationals will be a blast.  #YesWeCan