518Tennis

 Today was the battle of the two undefeated teams in our division. Unfortunately, we came out on the short end. Team Sampras was just too good in the clutch. We had six matches go to match tiebreakers, and we lost them all. Team Sampras will play for 1st and 2nd tomorrow, and we will play for 3rd and 4th. There are 12 teams, so being in the 3/4 playoff is not bad. Zonals is an incredible event. I was happy to be selected to be part of it. I am looking forward to tomorrow's playoff match, and I am looking forward to next year's Zonals. The coaches are already making plans (we are hoping the Cubs are in town at Wrigley the night before). editor@518tennis.com

  What an exciting day at Zonals. One of the players on the opposing team was injured so we started with a win in Boy's DoublesWe won the other Boy's Doubles handily, so we were quickly up 2-0, but then we lost both Girl's Doubles and both Mixed Doubles, so we were down 4-2 coming out of doubles. Next up was Boy's Singles. My #1 Boy - Omar Rhaszoli - managed to pull out a hard-fought and emotional match for the second day in a row. "Playing in front of my teammates pumps me up a lot because they are encouraging me and boosting my energy. I am able to play loose when my teammates are there. "(Omar) We managed to win 4 of the Boy's Singles - one was from the player who defaulted on their team - so next up was the Girl's Singles. My # 1 player - Katy Hancock - lost the first set and was down 4-1 in the second set, but she rallied to take the second set and win the match tiebreaker 10-8. We took 3 out of the remaining five singles matches to win 10-8. One

 Zonals matches began today.  First was Boys Doubles, Girls Doubles, and Mixed Doubles, followed by Boys and Girls Singles.  Eighteen individual matches make up a team match.  Today my team won 12-6.  Tomorrow we will play Team Ashe at 8:00 am. Olivia Dartawan (Niskayuna) is on Team Ashe. It will be good to see Olivia.  Tomorrow evening we are going to have a team dinner.  The parents are helping to set it up for us. Today I saw Zain Choudry - also from Niskayuna. We didn't play his team, but he stopped by to say hello.  Zain told me how much he liked the event.  "You are playing with your team.  Everyone is motivating you to do your best." Katy Hancock - my #1 player - said it well.  "I feel like I had less pressure because I had more people on my team.  I like playing as a team, but I don't want to let my teammates, down." I will have more tomorrow.

 This week I am coaching at the USTA BG14 Zone Team Cham[pionships at Kalamazoo (Zonals)o.  The event is being held at Western Michigan University.  The USTA breaks the country up into 4 zones.  Sections are assigned a certain number of spots at their Zonal site.  From there, the section  - Eastern Section in our case - invites its top players to apply.  Each section has a quota.  The highest ranked players to accept the invitations from that section go to Zonals.  From there, the players are waterfalled into teams with the highest ranked player on the first team, 2nd highest on the 2nd team ... the 12th highest ranked player on the 12th team, the 13th ranked player on the 12th team, the 14th ranked player on the 11th team, etc.  Players met their teammates, and we held our first practice yesterday.  Matches start today.  There are 6 Boys Singles and 6 Girls Singles in a match.  In addition, there are 2 Boys Doubles, 2 Girls Doubles, and 2 Mixed Doubles.  I will be reporting on Zonals

   We had two fantastic weeks for local junior tournament players. There were four junior tournaments in the Northern Region in just two weekends. A great two weekends for Northern Region junior tennis players. There was also a USTA World Tennis Number Banded event on Monday.  518 Level 7 Tournament at Shenedehowa On Saturday, Shenendehowa hosted the second leg of the 518 Tournament Series, and Chris Hanley did a masterful job. Many local kids played their first USTA tournament, with entries from as far away as Vermont. T Hats off to the Winners, Runners Up, and all who played. BOYS 14       WINNER – Ryan Sprinkle                            RUNNER UP – Jack Keating GIRLS 14      WINNER – Thihansa Waduthanthree           RUNNER UP – Callie Hanley BOYS 18       WINNER – Jackson Gallo                             RUNNER UP – Easton Chichak GIRLS 18       WINNER – Sonja Toisha                              RUNNER UP – Chloe Hanley                                          - - - - -

 It was a great day for a tennis tournament, and there were some great tennis matches this past Saturday at the SPORTIME Schenectady July Level 7 Tournament .  The highlight of the Girls 14’s was the Aishani Aialavajjala 4-1, 1-4, 7-4 victory over Meghan Uzzilia.  The 12 and under Boys draw opened with Clement Ceas’ 4-2, 5-4 victory over Jace Hill.  The tiebreaker was 11-9.  Four-game set matches don’t often go for 2 hours.  In the Boys, 14’s, almost every match had a tiebreaker.  Thanks to everyone who played, particularly those from out of town.  It’s always great to have new players come to our tournaments.  There will be a Level 7 Tournament this weekend at Shenendehowa .   There was more tennis on Monday.  This time it was a different event - a USTA World Tennis Number (WTN) Banded Event.   For WTN Banded events, players are grouped by ability level based on WTN - not age or gender.   There will be another WTN Banded Event the next Monday too. Girls 14 - Aishani  Aialavajjala   a

    There was a full schedule of events for local junior tennis players this weekend. First, there was a Level 5 Junior Tennis Tournament for Girls 16 and Unders. Level 5 tournaments are high-level events.  Nisha Jayaprakash topped Hope Brown in the singles.  Hope paired with Rayka Kogut, to take the doubles crown. This weekend SPORTIME Schenectady also hosted a World Tennis Number (WTN) Banded Evet. Players entered in the Banded Event are grouped by ability level – not by age or gender. The International Tennis Federation (ITF) has developed an international system for rating tennis players. Over 130 national tennis federations worldwide have embraced the WTN. Congratulations to the players who went undefeated in the event – John Wang and Ava Ehrlich. Watch for more WTN Banded Events. Sunday was ten and Under tennis time. Shawn Mendonca won the Green Ball event (JiaWue Wang was runner-up). Aiden Paul was the Orange Ball winner (Waliy Ashary was runner-up).   The next Junior Tournament

Katie and Roger Sheng kept it all in the family as they took top prize in both the Boys Division and the Girls Division of the SPORTIME Schenectady June Weekday Level 7 Tournament Series.  Congratulations to Katie and Roger and to all who played in the tournaments. editor@518tennis.com