AAACTA Advantage

News from the Ann Arbor Area Community Tennis Association October 2015

www.aaacta.org

A community organization dedicated to supporting and promoting tennis

in the Ann Arbor area.

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2015 City Tournament Wrap-Up

The 96th year of this great tennis tradition was hosted once again by the Ann Arbor Area Community Tennis Association at the Varsity Tennis Center in conjunction with the Ann Arbor Recreation and Education Department. There were 442 Adults in 24 divisions and 69 Juniors in 18 divisions. There were many exciting matches, and we had (mostly) great weather too! The support of the players, sponsors, and volunteers makes it possible for AAACTA to carry out its mission of serving the tennis community throughout the year.

Thank you, sponsors, volunteers, players, and spectators! All results are available on AAACTA's website.

We'd really like to get everyone interested in planning and working on next year's tournament. Please join us at our "early start" meeting on Sunday, November 1, 3:30pm, in the Rec & Ed Conference Room, 1515 S Seventh St, Ann Arbor.

The kids with coaches Nico Figueroa and Raymond Zhou at the Kids' Clinic during the Town Tennis Celebration. Go to AAACTA's Facebook page to see more photos from all of the weekends of the City Tournament.

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2015 Mueller Sportsmanship Award Winners

Congratulations to the 2015 Mueller Sportsmanship Award winners! These participants were chosen for their fair play and courtesy on the court.

From left to right: Rafid Farjo, Ajay Dass, Barbara Mueller, Kamie Mueller, Hikari Takemoto, Joshua Lee

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Our Indispensable 2015 Tournament Sponsors
Their support ensured our success. Thank them with your patronage!

Tournament Sponsors:

Match Sponsors:

Set Sponsors:

Ann Arbor Tennis Club * Ann Munro * Elizabeth Sulzby * Focal Upright Furniture

Giordani Family * Irfan Bhabhrawala & Stacey Pomransky * Janet Remen

Kuma & Yuuki * Tris Coffin * Zingerman's

Advantage Sponsors:

Encore Online Resale * Pfizer Foundation * Satchel's BBQ

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Thank You to Our Wonderful Volunteers!

City Tournament Volunteers

Sandell Bennett, Irfan Bhabhrawala, Kellie Carbone, Jim Douglass, Wes Dunnick, Nico Figueroa, Cecilia Fileti, Leigh Formicola, Anne Giordani, Bridget He, Lucy Jiang, Heidi Kerst, Anne-Marie Kim, Loren Levy, Christian Loepke, Carol Luckenbach, Barbara Mueller, Michael Nastos, Larry Nixon, Jim O'Connor, Justin Park, Helen Peters, Janet Remen, Carl Ritter, Vanda Shadigian, Susi Shaw, Kris Vilas, Barbara Wasneski, Karen Watanabe, Linda Woodland, Suzanne Yu, Raymond Zhao, and the staff at Varsity Tennis Center.

Thank you for volunteering your time and energy

at the adult and junior tournaments!

Special thanks to our ADULT TOURNAMENT DIRECTOR Helen Giordani

And to Singles Site Director Emina Bektas and to Junior Site Director Aki Ota!

Sixth-Grade Program Volunteers

Sarah Connor, Jim Douglass, Wes Dunnick, Juliana Farjo, Liz Gadway, Anne Giordani, Roopa Gurm, Carolynn Hayman, Nick Holland, Kathy Legatski, Jane Levy, Jody Linn, George Lowe, Al McDonough, Ralph McKee, Michael Nastos, Helen Peters, Fred Smith, Susan Vuchetich, and Cary Welsh.

Sixth-Grade Program High School Coaches

Phebe Burns, Alex Cadigan, Brendan Chen, Gage Feldeisen, Nico Figueroa, David Gandham, Ben Greenberg, Sam Greenberg, Rahul Gupta, Vishnu Kannan, Matt Kelley, Alex Kotlyar, Kai McKenney, Grant McLean, Malay Mody, Kobie Mueller, Nile Nwogu, Justin Park, Marcelo Salas, Orion Sang, Arya Sarabandi, Veer Shetty, George Tam, CJ Williams, Taimor Williams, Andy Xie, and Alan Zhou.

Thank you for running our Sixth-Grade Tennis Program last spring, which introduces tennis to sixth graders at the AAPS middle schools!

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Congratulations to Varsity Tennis Center 4.0 Women's Team captained by Chiquita Berg!

They finished 3rd at the 2015 National Championships in the 18 & Over 4.0 division!

Chiquita's team breezed through the regular season undefeated, but then had a roller coaster adventure suffering injuries, nail-biting third-set tiebreakers, and blistering heat as they made their way through all the levels of playoffs--local, state, sectional, and national. They were just a couple points shy of playing in the National Finals, but rebounded well to win the 3rd/4th playoff match and take Third Place in the country! What a wonderful season!

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Fashions and Forehands

Late last summer, a group of friends got together for an evening of tennis and a silent auction in honor of their friend Darlee Towler, who was an avid tennis player who died in 2008. When Kathy Green first organized the event, she was hoping to raise about $100 from the sale of "this & that" so they were all so delighted to raise $400 for the first year of this event in honor of their dear friend Darlee. Their group has decided to give $200 to AAACTA toward their youth tennis scholarships and $200 to Peace Neighborhood toward their summer tennis camp program. They hope to repeat it again in 2016, and with some of those proceeds, they plan to purchase junior rackets for the Peace Neighborhood tennis campers.

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High School Boys' Tennis

The Ann Arbor Greenhills boys' tennis team won its eighth consecutive Division 4 state title and ninth in 10 years, edging runner-up Grosse Pointe Woods University Liggett. Greenhills captured championships at #2 Singles (Sam Talsma), #3 Singles (Gage Feldeisen), and #4 Singles (Andy Xie), plus #1 Doubles (Brandon Johnson / Jack Harris) and #2 Doubles (Connor Todd / Mitchell Gajar), to give the Gryphons 36 team points.

Ann Arbor Pioneer and Ann Arbor Huron finished 3rd and tied for 4th, respectively, in the Division 1 State Championships. Pioneer had State Champions at #3 Doubles (Gabe Kleer / Josh Lee) and #4 Doubles (Nikhil Kalia / Grant McLean) as well as the runners-up in #2 Doubles (Sayhann Goraya / Nico Figueroa). Huron won championships at #4 Singles (Chris Cho) and #2 Doubles (Austin Choi / Robert Dong).

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Visit AAACTA at www.aaacta.org

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Betsy Capelli
AAACTA Newsletter Editor
Got a comment or an idea about the newsletter? info@aaacta.org

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