On Saturday February 2nd, The Racquet Club of Lake Bluff hosted CITA’s Boys High School League finals.  There was a nice group of spectators (mostly parents)  taking in the action.  The finalists were the teams from The Racquet Club of Lake Bluff and College Park Athletic Club (Team 2).  College Park had all three teams in the playoffs so kudos to them for doing so well.  Four courts of doubles are played by order of strength.  This league was created to provide high school players an opportunity to develop their doubles game with a little assistance from a coach.  In watching the matches, I was struck by the positive interactions between teammates and the sportsmanship of all the players towards one another.  RCLB took took the first court 6-1, 6-2 with both power and finesse.  Court 2 had different playing styles with everyone scrambling after every ball using slice and topspin.  Very fun to watch.  RCLB won court two 6-2, 6-2.  College Park needed to win courts 3 and 4.  Court three had a very tight match that went 3 sets with College Park winning 5-7, 6-4, 6-1.  Court four also went 3 sets with RCLB winning 6-7, 6-0, 6-1.  The team from the Racquet Club of Lake Bluff won 3-1.  It was great watching the next generation of tennis players.  Congratulations to everyone!  Well-done!

The Chicagoland Indoor Tennis Association (CITA) has embarked on creating our own database.  The following is a quick overview of the site:

Home:  The Home page is the first thing you will see when you enter www.citatennis.net.  You will be in the North/Central Home page.  The Home page provides you with the ability to see the Standings and the Scores  of the matches.  It will give you the Latest News and it will provide you with General Information under Member Services.  Up at the top right hand corner you will see Northwest and Login.  If you click on Northwest, you will be taken to the Northwest Division Home page.  Login is for the Captains of the teams.  The Login allows the captains to input their lineups, scores, players and other administrative tasks.

North/Central League:  The North/Central League tab lists all the leagues on the left hand side.  If you click on one of the leagues, you will see the Standings and Schedule change accordingly.  Under Standings, you will see from left-to-right, Teams, Percentage, Won, Lost, Weeks and a date (if a match has been played).  The Teams are the Clubs who have a team in the league.  Pct. or Percentage give you the win percentage.  So, if each match is worth a possible 18 points and the team won 10 points out of 18 points, the win percentage will read 55.56%.  Won and Lost are the points won or lost.  It will add up the points from match to match.  Weeks indicate the number of matches each team will play.  In some cases you will see a team play 12 weeks in stead of 13 weeks.  This is due to the Byes.  Lastly, Date of Match will show the points from the match.  If you put your mouse arrow over the box you will see it highlight.  Click on the box and a Score Detail will show up in a separate tab in your browser.

Clubs:  The Chicagoland Indoor Tennis Association’s member clubs are shown on the left hand side.  If you click on one of the clubs, it will provide you with the Club’s address, phone number, web address, directions, schedules for all the teams associated with the club, along with club rosters, and club standings.

News:  Provides you with the Latest News as seen on the Home Page but in a slightly different format.

Forms:  Provides you with the ability to print out the rules in a .pdf format.  There is a scoring sample for Singles matches as well.

Archive Results:  Provides you with information from the previous year in a similar format as the current year.

Rules:  Provides you with our current rules.  Several rules changed this year.  It is always a good idea to review the rules.

Contact:  Provides you with the Executive Director’s contact information.

May 14, 2012

The Women’s 4.0 Red Friday league has a few less teams than the Wednesday 4.0 league but no less competitive. Northbrook Racquet Club hosted the Finals between RC Lake Bluff and Libertyville on May 11th. As can happen to the best laid plans or in this case, the best laid lineup, a family emergency caused Libertyville to have to default court 3. Libertyville knew they had their work cut out for them but when they played RC Lake Bluff in the regular season they had beaten them, so anything was possible. But now different players faced off against each other and instead of the matches going Libertyville’s way, The Racquet Club of Lake Bluff came away with a 5-1 win over Libertyville with 4 of the matches decided by a 3rd set. Standing from L-R: Jana Donahue, Sharon Deram, Cati Christiansen, Tami Zylka, Anna Thor, Carrie Travers, Deb Marcussen, Donna Oldenburg; in front from L-R: Megan Jordan and Diane Tice

North Shore has dominated the Open Red league for many years, either winning the Finals or coming up as the Runner-up as was the case last year. College Park East pulled together a very strong team to counter North Shore’s depth. They thought this might be the year. College Park East hosted the Women’s Open Red finals but even with home court advantage they couldn’t counter the depth of experience from North Shore. North Shore won in 2 sets on court 2, 5 and 6. Courts 1,3 and 4 split sets and because North Shore would win in sets even if College Park won the other 3 matches, they opted to not play out the 3rd set. Instead they gathered around the spread that College Park put out celebrated another season of great tennis gone by.

The Women’s 3.5 league is a passionate league full of players who are working hard on their game. They all want to play better, learn how to move on the court, how to counter opponent’s shots and how to win. They are learning how to partner with another person, to communicate (WATCH OUT!! YOURS) with them, and hopefully learning how make the partner feel okay even if they missed a shot. Glenbrook Racquet Club was hosting the Finals of the Women’s 3.5 league and they had a team in the Finals against North Shore. GRC had a slight home court advantage but it was slight. There were no blowout matches. Glenbrok won 3 of the matches in 2 sets and they knew they only needed one more to make it a decisive win. Courts 1, 4 and 6 were in a 3rd set battle. GRC knew that even if they tied in matches, they would win in sets. But everyone wanted to know the full outcome. Court 1 went GRC’s way with courts 4 and 6 going to North Shore. Glenbrook won 4-2 in the end with everyone on both teams giving it their all.

Five Seasons Family Sports Club hosted the Women’s Open Green Championships on May 11th. It is always exciting to see the Finals come down to games. Every match counts, every set counts, every game counts and, really, every point counts. One by one the matches come off the court, ecstatic over their win or disappointed with their loss. They know they have a good team of players on their team so they cheer on their teammates. But now we are down to 2 matches who are playing their 3rd set. Each captain is starting to count games but each hoping they will win the 3rd set so they don’t have to count games. MTB wins court 4 in a 3rd set tie-breaker and RCLB wins court 6. RCLB edged out Midtown-Bannockburn in games 71-61. Kneeling, l-r: Beth Jones, Alison Koopsen, Audrey Koopsen, Rosemary O’Connell, Linda DeBiase. Standing, l-r: Julia Miller, Julie O’Malley, Lisa Massar, Leslie McPeek, Hollis, McPeek, Kathy Logic, Deb Springgate, Margaret Kiela, Pam click, Catherine Batinovic, and Diane Gregg.

My oh My!! It came down to games being counted. CPAC-E won court 3 in 2 sets, MTB won court 4 in 2 sets. MTB won court 1 in 3 sets and CPAC-E won court 2 in 3 sets. Sets were tied at 5 apiece. Everyone was tallying up the games, once then twice then three times to make sure there was no mistake in addition. 6 games – that was the difference. Midtown-Bannockburn won in games 52-46.

On the surface it looks like Midtown-Palatine had a easy win over River Trails as they pulled out a 6-0 win over them. But 4 of the 6 matches went to 3 sets. In 3 of the tie-breakers they were down a set and figured out how to beat their opponents. I often quote from Galaxy Quest the words, “Never give up. Never surrender” to my partners ’cause you never know. You may end up on the winning side of the game. From L-R: Mike Latimer, Ken Raczek, Joe Watkins, Brett Ratay, Joey Tran (down low), Kent Mathis, Doug Gow, Steve Fallon, Rich Gutierrez, Bob Biergans, John Kopsky, and Howard Bushnell.

The River Trails 1 team wanted this win. Their Open team who was solidly in 4th until the last match of the season was knocked out of the playoffs by College Park East. Their 4.0 team who was in the finals against Midtown-Palatine just suffered a loss. They didn’t want to go back to their club empty-handed. They wanted to win. They knew they needed to try to win in 2 sets because if the matches were tied, it would come down to sets. The top court won decisively, then came the next courts – loss at court 5, win at court 2, win at court 6, win at court 4. They had WON. Back Row (L-R): Don Ferris, John Mistro, Steve Weinstein, Kevin Buggy, Barry Dempsey, Marius Biernacki, Clint Newbold, Tom Valverde Front (L-R): Ryan Vasey, John Song, Robin Kiamco, Herb Eng, Brad Wilson