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Team Stories

Issue 17: Spring, 2007

The Foster City Tennis Club sponsors many teams and we have written many stories to share our team experiences with the club. For prior issues, please check out our archive.

FCTC 7.0 Mixed Doubles Team Wins National Title

by Jake Karmendy, Captain

The road to USTA’s Western Nationals Mixed Doubles Championships ended the week before Thanksgiving at Darling Tennis Center in Las Vegas. But it began 14 months earlier in September, 2005, when the FCTC 7.0 Mixed Doubles team was only one of 170 teams in Northern California competing for the right to take the trip.

In between the team traversed the deadly Upper Peninsula League last Fall, compiling a 12-1 record but needing a hard-fought win over Beresford in the March Local Playoffs to do battle at the Stanford Districts in May. Three wins there brought the team to Harbor Bay for the Nor-Cal Championship in June where Foster City eked out two close wins, only to face highly favored Clubsport Fremont in the deciding match for the trip to Las Vegas. What happened that Sunday was the unexpected monster win of the season – a 3-0 victory that became the signature moment for the FCTC team.

The long road ended on November 19 when the FCTC’s Northern California Championship team defeated the favored Hawaii-Pacific Champion from Oahu to capture the National Title as the “Best in the West” Mixed 7.0 team. At the 3-day National Tournament the FCTC team amassed a Tournament best individual record of 12-3 in individual matches, and bested 8 other champions from each USTA section west of the Mississippi.

Despite it's gaudy record the Northern California team did not escape high drama. The title match against Hawaii came down to the final points in the final set of the final match. The pair of Henry Lin and Cecilia Sharer stayed calm amidst the turmoil around them to win the Super-Tiebreaker set 10-5 and capture the crown. The “take it to the bank” pair of Jason Yang and Lisa Hing had set up the victory with a straight set triumph over their Hawaiian foes. Others making the trip to Las Vegas and contributing to the storybook finish were Captain Jake Karmendy, Co-Captain Ashley Nguyen Chen, 4-match winner Paul Lin, undefeated Allison Don, Srini Subramanian, Cathy Chang, Jim Chen, and a host of family and friends.

Not able to make the trip were team members Jeff Burgos, Cheryl Chang Hagedorn, Sean Ha, Nancy Kane, Kieu-Nhi Le, and Jeff Roodman.

It was a wild ride.

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Mixed 7.0 -- Another Successful Season

by Jake Karmendy, Captain

For the third year in a row, the Club’s 7.0 Mixed Doubles team has advanced to Local Playoffs.  This year’s entry needed to replace almost the entire team from last year, but did so with surprising success, completing the regular season with a 7-3 mark.

Only Lisa Hing, Allison Don, Srini Subramanian and Captain Jake Karmendy were allowed to return to the roster.  But new talent emerged: Ravi Mohan, Martin Uiberlacker and wife Kasie Cheung, David Gopal, Greta Rzepski, Karen Broderson, Fred De Sauvage, Mike and Margaret Vonsovich, and Mike Sing.  The team was able to put together enough good showings to finish 3rd of 11 teams and make Locals.

No one can predict if this team can go as far as earlier editions – that would be a lot to expect.  But one thing is certain: This team will give it all it’s got.

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Sr. Women's 3.0 Team

by Kacey Karmendy, Captain

The Fall 2006 senior women’s 3.0 team once again found ourselves without an opponent in the Upper Peninsula division. And, once again, we opted to go south to the “Mid” Peninsula division, knowing full well how tough that competition would be. We had many close matches (20-22 overall, 12 of the 22 matches lost went to a third set or supertiebreaker!) that could have gone either way. While we finished out of the running, only a couple of matches made the difference among the teams vying for the last playoff berth. We had a great group of ladies on the team, and I want to thank all of them for their participation and support. Thanks Renate, Rita, Susan, Dania, Rikko, Marcia (my supersupportive co-captain), Mary, Gemma, Marie (on injured reserve most of the season), Pat, Marion, Sam, Maureen, Po, Kathleen, Fumi and Phyllis. Looking forward to another fun and successful senior season in 2007, when many of those 3-set matches will go our way!

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Sr. Women's 3.5B Team

by Vikki Mion, Captain

...3 balls in a can of tennis balls...
...3 is part of our Team name...
...3 of our Teams play in each match....
...3rd year together as a Team...
...3 doubled x 3 = number of outstanding and dedicated team members on our Team: Barby Pickett, Becky Reiss, Cathy Urban, Cheryl Butts, Dixie Ruland, Dora Kreidl, Janet Adams, Joan Prack, Judy Prothro, Marie Wong, Marlys Ludlow, Mary Jenney, Olive Ebert, Patty Coulson, Rosemary Bardi, Scarlett Wood, Vikki Mion, and Wendy Lee...
...Past 3 years, the same 3 Teams (Peninsula GCC, the other FCTC Team, and us) have ended our Regular Season in the top 4 and headed into Local LeaguePlayoffs....
...3rd month (March) and the 3rd day is our scheduled 1st round of Local League Playoffs...

Our Regular Season was #1, the Local League Playoffs will be #2, and the Districts will be #3 and we aren't against doubling it to -Sectionals #4, Nationals #5, and returning home National Champions #6.

Last year at Districts, our 2nd match, we came very close (in 3rd set "Coman Tie-breaker") to beating the Team that went on to become the National SW3.5 Champions... May our desire, skill, dream and lucky #3 come through and double to a #6......
3 3 3 to 6 6 6 6 6 6

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Men's Combo 9.5 Team -- Sectional Champions!!

by Vikas Agrawal, Captain

We had a great 3 days in Fresno.

Friday and Saturday, we beat teams from Fremont and Fresno by relatively comfortable 2-1 scores. So as expected, it came down to the Sunday match with a tough team from Castlewood who had matched our wins the previous two days. We all talked through the possibilities Saturday night and came up with a lineup that gave us 3 strong teams to go against their 2 good doubles teams and one slightly weaker one. Everything started falling into place as Jason and Art steamrolled their opponents after calling for a line judge after the first point of the match. Steve and Eric played really well together but lost to a very tough team at #2 in 2 very tight and well-played sets. Simon and I won a close first set, got out to a comfortable lead in the second, and finally closed it out to clinch the win, 7-5, 6-4.

So that's it, we are Norcal champs for 9.5 combo (there is no next step for combo this year so our season is over).



Thanks to everyone for playing this year. At a minimum, I think it helped bridge the gap between men's seasons without completely having to resort to mixed.

And especially thanks to Art, Jason, Simon, Eric, and Steve for making the trip to Fresno. Aside from winning, we had a really good time taking in what Fresno had to offer (which was a lot more than expected). And a final extra thanks to co-captain Jason for helping with everything during the season - could not have made it through without you.

Updated 3/7/07

 
 


© 2007 Foster City Tennis Club