Midtown-Chicago Men’s Open Champions

There are only 4 teams in this league and it’s REALLY competitive.  Players who dominated the juniors in their younger years or played college or on the tour play in this league.  They can blast balls with control and have quick hand/eye coordination.  They are strategic and wily.  The two finalists in this league, College Park Athletic Club and Midtown-Chicago were very familiar with each other often, having played each other throughout the regular season and in previous years’ finals.  On court 1 CPAC’s Jean Erasmus and Alex Lambropoulos won in 2 sets against MTC’s Mike Sprouse and Adham Alaily 6-3, 6-4.  On court 2 MTC’s Jeff Keen and Carl McCafferty evened it up with a win against CPAC’s Uno Lapimaa and Matt Wierzel 6-2, 6-4.  On court 3 CPAC’s Gino Bautista and Ryan Kreis won against MTC’s Paul Brandt and Ryan Edlefsen 6-2, 6-2.  Skipping courts 4 and 5 for now, on court 6 MTC’s James Moultan and Chris Tkach won against CPAC’s Andy Rice and John Metzger 6-2, 6-0.  At this point the matches were tied 2-2.  On court 4 MTC took the 1st set.  On court 5, CPAC took the 1st set, then it started going south for CPAC.  On court 4, MTC’s Thanos Kantarelis and Vasiliy Guryanov kept up the heat against CPAC’s Dan Mihalov and Luke Helm and won 7-5, 6-3.  On court 5, MTC’s Dave Clarke and Stew Bradley regrouped against CPAC’s Brian Wu (captain of CPAC’s Open team) and Kedam Rajendra.  After losing the first set in a tie-breaker they came back to win the 2nd set 6-3.  At that point, CPAC knew they had lost in sets but wanted to close out the match with a match tie-breaker.  MTC won 6-7, 6-3, 1-0 (13-11).  Nice playing everyone!