10/8/17:
"Riz hosts 4 at NTC, Kris hosts 6 at C.G.!":
Despite the early rain postponing the M-Dub Mixed Doubles Tournament, it cleared somewhat later in the day enabling two sessions of GTA Sunday Tennis: the first one was late-afternoon/early-evening at Nutley Tennis Club hosted by "The Riz" John Rizzo and the second one was the usual evening session at The Cedar Grove Courts hosted by "The K Man" Kris Srinivasan.
Let's first get The Riz Report from Nutley and then The K-Man's recap from Cedar Grove!
The NTC Results:
2 out of 3 Sets Doubles Match:
John Rizzo/Alfred Chen over Tom La/Rich Liu, 6-1, 7-5, to successfully defend their # 40 Rank in the Doubles Division! In the process, La/Liu entered the division as the New # 89 Ranked Team. No Aces.
The Riz Report: Alfred, Rich and I all arrived around 4pm and started warming up and playing Canadian Doubles. Tom arrived at 4:35 and, after a brief warm-up, we started. Alfred and I raced to a 5-0 lead pretty quickly. Only two points away from eating a bagel, Tom and Rich got on the scoreboard and made it 5-1. We won the next game and the 1st Set. The 2nd Set got underway and Alfred and I found ourselves down 0-2, 0-40 on Alfred's serve before we came back to win the game. We went up 3-2, then were down 5-4 and finally won out at 7-5. This set could have gone either away as Tom and Rich missed a couple of easy shots on Game Points (in their favor).
Tom La/Rich Liu over John Rizzo/Alfred Chen, 6-2! Tom: 1 Ace on John. We started this One-Setter after 6pm and it turned into speed tennis as Alfred soon had to leave…plus we were rapidly running out of daylight! Tom and Rich got revenge this set and played much cleaner and started to make the shots that they missed before. It was good to play considering how iffy the weather was all day.
Samara's Notes: I thank John for his very timely reporting and also providing some comprehensive commentary this time around. We now head up to Cedar Grove and get the word from Kris.
The weather had its say in the morning pushing the M-Dub tournament to next Sunday, but as expected the weather got better as the day progressed. It motivated an evening session, a limited edition for the chosen few…:-).
But before we get to that, I now share a report submitted by "The Mel Man" Melvin Hyman of what happened (or didn't happen) at the courts earlier in the day.
I hit for an hour or two and played a bunch of games with Herb Reiner. Jordan Bachvaroff played two sets with his longtime sparring partner (maybe you know his name). Nothing official, but we held down the fort on an extremely humid day.
Samara's Notes: I thank Mel for reporting. I doubt the other guy that Jordan was playing against was Erdem Alpay or otherwise he likely would have shared it with us. I know that Jordan routinely plays Singles on Sunday mornings with a player (or players, perhaps) outside of the GTA.
We now turn this report back over to Kris.
The Cedar Grove Results:
Senthil Kumar/Kris Srinivasan over Levy Lorenzo/Tito Castolo, 6-3! No Aces.
Senthil was the first to show up for the evening and after an initial warm-up, the only four players on the court had a Doubles One-Setter. It was a resounding start for us going up 5-Love before a solid comeback by Levy and Tito earned them the next three games before we closed out the match.
Levy Lorenzo/Tito Castolo over Kris Srinivasan/Dino Celis, 6-3! Dino: 2 Aces on Levy!
It was a good match, especially the first half tied at 3-All. Dino was solid in his serving and they looked like easy games whenever he was serving. His cross-court shots were punishing and Levy was the target. But then, the serves let us down in the second half as, coincidentally, Levy and Tito upped their level of play. There were nice long rallies but, in the end, Tito and Levy prevailed to snuff us out.
Senthil Kumar/Doinks Srinivasan over Levy Lorenzo/Tito Castolo, 6-2! No Aces.
Senthil was at his best in this set with his slices and overhead shots being very effective. Once Doinks started playing her shots aggressively, it was an easy win for her team with Senthil at the net as he was difficult to get away from. Still, there were a couple of games in the beginning that seemingly went on forever and both were won by Senthil and Doinks.
It was a short but brisk session on a very humid night. Only Tito dealt with the humid weather hard by wearing his sweater, jacket and neck scarf! Cheers!
Samara's Notes: I thank Kris for hosting and always reporting in such a timely manner.
Sincerely,
Frank Samara
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