2/20/18:
"Edwin-Omar part of 9 (1 new) at C.G., 4 play at PAC, 10 at The Bubble!":
There were three sessions of GTA Tuesday Night Tennis on the Official Opening Day of the 2018 Season: the first one being at The Cedar Grove Courts starting in the late afternoon as an Open Challenge was issued by "Ice Berg" Scott Bergenfeld. That challenge was answered by "Big George" Jorge Solano, but they only ended up playing a One-Setter. But beating them to the punch was a full Challenge Match (though once a 10-Point Super Tiebreak was played in lieu of a full 3rd Set, rank was no longer on the line) between "Salsa Picante" Edwin Ortega and "Stealth" Omar Santos. From there, "The Marathon Woman" Doinks Srinivasan ended up being the impromptu host of the rest of the session.
This session would not have even been possible if it was not for the fact that "The K Man" Kris Srinivasan called his connection at the Cedar Grove Parks and Recreation Department and got them to put the lights on earlier than usual. In fact, he believes they will now stay on for the rest of the season.
The second session was an evening get together at The Park Ave. Courts in Nutley as "SWAT" Rich Liu (he earned that new moniker for the way he was successfully swatting down so many balls up at the net) sent out a message to his Meet-Up Group. That led to some GTA and non-GTA players showing up, but the biggest surprise was the late arrival of "Hollywood" Frank Samara at 8:40.
Earlier in the day when seeing how things were developing with the announcements and/or challenges issued by Scott, Kris and Rich, Frank stated he would almost surely stay home given the fact he had been dealing with a killer headache all along plus his son was sick. But later in the evening, the headache subsided...his son started feeling better...and Samara was suddenly free to go! It was a good thing he did as there were only three players remaining by the time he got there...more on that later.
We should also say that this second session was made possible by similar string-pulling from Rich with a connection he has at the Nutley Parks and Recreation Dept.
And the third session was the usual one at The Wayne Bubble with "The Riz" John Rizzo organizing and running that Night Owls Group. "The AM Rush" Anish Mehta and Tony "Sure Shot" Shiao tried to play a full Challenge Match, but they ran out of time. So it will end up being two One-Setters followed by an incomplete one.
With such amazingly warm weather for this time of year (69 degrees on February 20th?!?!), it only made sense to move up the official start date of the 2018 Season from Friday the 23rd to Tuesday the 20th. As nice as it was, it was also quite humid.
We will first go to the results sent in by Omar, Scott and Doinks from Cedar Grove. Then we will have the full recap of the action from Nutley. And we will finish this report with the scores sent in by John and Anish from The Wayne Bubble.
The Cedar Grove Results:
2 out of 3 Sets Match:
Omar Santos over Edwin Ortega, 5-7, 6-1, 10-5 (STB)! No Aces. Once they went to the Super Tiebreak, rank was no longer on the line in this match.
Samara's Notes: I thank Omar for sending in that result. We now go to Scott who sent in a little commentary as well.
Scott Bergenfeld over Jorge Solano, 6-2! Jorge: 1 Ace up the T (the first Ace of the season)!
The What Not from Scott: Omar and Edwin were finishing their match when I arrived and I had the chance to hit with Omar while waiting for Jorge. We left around 7:45 and all four courts were empty at that time.
Samara's Notes: I thank Scott for his report. Those courts would not remain empty for long as the next batch of GTA players would soon arrive. We now go to Doinks for the rest of the action at Cedar Grove.
Ryan Pienciak/Roger Karapin over Moka Pathan/Doinks Srinivasan, 6-1! No Aces (apparently). It was the official GTA Debut of Roger Karapin.
Moka Pathan/Doinks Srinivasan over Kris Srinivasan/Roger Karapin, 6-4! No Aces.
The Details from Doinks: Dino Celis also came, but he didn't want to play because he just had a "huuuuge" dinner just before. He left after 15 minutes. We ended the session early around 9pm as both Moka and Roger had to leave at that time.
Samara's Notes: I thank Doinks for her report. I also welcome Roger to the league. For the time being, we will call him "Mr. 600" as he is the 600th male player to have ever played in the GTA! That means we have had 100 men come into the league since the debut of "Mr. 500" Levy Lorenzo (aka "The Levitator") which was as recent as 2016!
We now head from Cedar Grove to Nutley for the full recap of how that session unfolded.
When Samara pulled into the parking lot at The Park Ave. Courts in Nutley at 8:40, he saw that all four courts were full! But all was not well when he first arrived.
On Court One, it seemed that Rich was engaged in a One-Setter with his buddy, "Ravishing" Randy Doran, but it turned out to be just part of a "King of The Mountain" session as their third wheel, "The Edge" Edgar Valencia was practicing his serve on Court Two.
And over on Court Four was a couple hitting against one another. Later in the night as they were leaving, they said "good bye" to both Rich and Edgar. So it seems they are part of the Meet-Up Group, but not the GTA. Also, Rich had said that earlier in the evening, "The Art Font" Arthur Fontanilla had played with them...but nothing official for the league.
Back to the problem that Samara saw upon his arrival...it was a bunch of high school kids on Court Three playing soccer! And then Frank saw an errant kick send the ball over in Edgar's direction. Already, Frank was fuming!
Not sure if Edgar said something to them or if the group noticed the anger in Frank's eyes as he headed toward the courts, but thankfully they all gathered their things and left at that time.
We then agreed to play Doubles and hoped to have a full match between the teams of Samara/Liu and Doran/Valencia. But the clock had other ideas!
The Park Ave. Results:
Frank Samara/Rich Liu over Randy Doran/Edgar Valencia, 6-4! Edgar: 1 Ace on Rich! The quick lowdown as I did not note who hit what winners where and when in order to save time (we were hoping to play a full match as we got it started on Court One at 8:50, but we did do the changeovers and I did write down quick notes to summarize each game): Rich was broken (Triple Break Point, broken on Double Break Point), Randy was broken (Triple Break Point cut down to Break Point, but then broken), but Frank was the first to hold serve (15-Love, 15-All then onto Double Game Point, the hold came on Game Point) for a 2-1 lead. Edgar also held (15-Love, 15-All, a nice sideline Ace against Rich for 30-15, then a Double Fault for 30-All, Game Point and the hold) and then Liu was broken again (15-Love, Double Fault for 15-All and then onto Double Break Point, bounce back to Deuce, then Game Point, 2nd Deuce and another Double Fault to make it Break Point, 3rd Deuce, Game Point, 4th Deuce, Game Point, 5th Deuce, Break Point and then the break to end the struggle) to lose the lead at 2-3! Doran was also broken again (15-Love went straight to Double Break Point and then a Double Fault to break himself) and level the set at 3-3, but then Samara was also broken (Triple Break Point, broken on Double Break Point) to lose the lead again, this time at 3-4. Valencia was also broken (Love-30, 15-30, Double Break Point, Break Point and the break) to knot the score once more, this time at 4-4! SWAT finally held serve (Love-15 shifted to 30-15, then it was 30-All where a Double Fault set up Break Point, but then it went to Deuce, Game Point and the hold) while The Ravishing One was broken a third straight time (Love-30 shifted to 30-All, then Break/Set Point where he once again broke himself with a Double Fault!) to drop the set at exactly 9:28.
Two minutes later, we started what we had hoped would be the 2nd Set of a full 2 out of 3 Sets Match. We had even discussed the possibility of playing a 10-Point Super Tiebreak in lieu of a full 3rd Set if Doran and Valencia took the 2nd Set in order to have it be a full match for ranking both teams in the Doubles Division. We were oh so close, but it was not to be...as you will now see!
Frank Samara/Rich Liu leading Randy Doran/Edgar Valencia, 5-2 (Incomplete as it was Deuce and lights out at 10pm)! No Aces. Here's how it was going: Frank held at Love and then Edgar was broken in a battle (15-Love, a Double Fault for 15-All and then point for point to Game Point, Deuce, Game Point and then another Double Fault to make it 2nd Deuce, Break Point, 3rd Deuce and yet another Double Fault to make it Break Point once again, 4th Deuce, Double Fault for Break Point and yet another Break Point to break himself) to get his team off to a 0-2 start in this set. Rich was broken (15-Love, a Double Fault for 15-All and then onto Double Break Point, then Break Point and then a Double Fault to break himself as well) and then Randy finally held serve (Love-15 shifted to 30-15, 30-All, Game Point and the hold) to level things at 2-2. Samara held again (30-Love, 30-15, Double Game Point and the hold) while Valencia was broken again (15-Love shifted to 15-30, 30-All, Break Point, Deuce, Break Point again and then the break) to fall to 2-4. Liu held (Triple Game Point, Double Fault for Double Game Point, but then the hold) to increase his team's lead to 5-2 and then Doran was on serve as he got off to a 30-Love lead, it was then 30-15 and then Double Game Point before that was reduced to Deuce and just as he was about to serve...LIGHTS OUT!
It was frustrating not to be able to finish the match...and not just for Samara/Liu, but for Doran/Valencia as well as both teams would have then been ranked in the Doubles Division. But, still, it was a lot of fun. The action was intense. Everyone but Rich got pelted with the ball hard at least once.
Randy noticed how much better Rich was playing since he has been competing fairly steadily up at The Wayne Bubble during the off-season. Liu was such a force at the net, that we kept coming up with new monikers for him (as we never really had a good one for him...first it was "Richie Rich" and then it was "Richie Running Things").
Well, tonight, we first called him "The Finisher" as he kept finishing points up at the net. But then when Randy noted how Rich was swatting away at those shots (not an insult...as most of the time those short and quick swings were successful), we then said he was "The Swatter." But, ultimately, Samara decided that "SWAT" was a cooler sounding moniker than "The Swatter."
It may have ended up being a short session officially, but it was one with much hard-fought action throughout the course of it...and it was a whole lot of fun and it felt like a bonus just getting to play in such spring-like weather in February.
We now head up to The Wayne Bubble for those scores.
The Wayne Bubble Results:
2 out of 3 Sets Doubles Match:
John Rizzo/Tom La over Mike Sindler/Jonathan La, 7-5, 6-1, as both teams entered the Doubles Division as the New # 142 and # 143 Ranked Teams respectively! It was the official GTA Return of Jonathan La. No Aces (apparently).
3 out of 5 Sets Doubles Match:
Ryan Pienciak/Nick Caputo over Chris Chiaro/Senthil Kumar, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4, to successfully defend their #126 in the Doubles Division! No Aces (apparently).
Samara's Notes: I thank John for collecting and reporting those scores. We now get the final batch of results from Anish.
Tony Shiao over Anish Mehta, 6-1! Total Ace count to come after the next full One-Setter and then the incomplete one to follow.
Anish Mehta over Tony Shiao, 6-3!
Anish Mehta leading Tony Shiao, 5-4 (Incomplete at Deuce when time ran out at 11pm)!
The AM News: Although we intended to play it as a full match, we were not really thinking about it being a challenge for rank as Tony was likely unaware that the season had officially begun. We had to stop right at 11pm, mid-point. The match could have ended in 30 seconds…or could have lasted another 20 minutes. It was a tough match and too bad there was no proper closure to it.
Samara's Notes: I thank Anish for reporting the results along with his additional commentary.
Well, it turned out to be quite a Season Opening Day (and evening) for the GTA!
Sincerely,
Frank Samara
"Edwin-Omar part of 9 (1 new) at C.G., 4 play at PAC, 10 at The Bubble!":
There were three sessions of GTA Tuesday Night Tennis on the Official Opening Day of the 2018 Season: the first one being at The Cedar Grove Courts starting in the late afternoon as an Open Challenge was issued by "Ice Berg" Scott Bergenfeld. That challenge was answered by "Big George" Jorge Solano, but they only ended up playing a One-Setter. But beating them to the punch was a full Challenge Match (though once a 10-Point Super Tiebreak was played in lieu of a full 3rd Set, rank was no longer on the line) between "Salsa Picante" Edwin Ortega and "Stealth" Omar Santos. From there, "The Marathon Woman" Doinks Srinivasan ended up being the impromptu host of the rest of the session.
This session would not have even been possible if it was not for the fact that "The K Man" Kris Srinivasan called his connection at the Cedar Grove Parks and Recreation Department and got them to put the lights on earlier than usual. In fact, he believes they will now stay on for the rest of the season.
The second session was an evening get together at The Park Ave. Courts in Nutley as "SWAT" Rich Liu (he earned that new moniker for the way he was successfully swatting down so many balls up at the net) sent out a message to his Meet-Up Group. That led to some GTA and non-GTA players showing up, but the biggest surprise was the late arrival of "Hollywood" Frank Samara at 8:40.
Earlier in the day when seeing how things were developing with the announcements and/or challenges issued by Scott, Kris and Rich, Frank stated he would almost surely stay home given the fact he had been dealing with a killer headache all along plus his son was sick. But later in the evening, the headache subsided...his son started feeling better...and Samara was suddenly free to go! It was a good thing he did as there were only three players remaining by the time he got there...more on that later.
We should also say that this second session was made possible by similar string-pulling from Rich with a connection he has at the Nutley Parks and Recreation Dept.
And the third session was the usual one at The Wayne Bubble with "The Riz" John Rizzo organizing and running that Night Owls Group. "The AM Rush" Anish Mehta and Tony "Sure Shot" Shiao tried to play a full Challenge Match, but they ran out of time. So it will end up being two One-Setters followed by an incomplete one.
With such amazingly warm weather for this time of year (69 degrees on February 20th?!?!), it only made sense to move up the official start date of the 2018 Season from Friday the 23rd to Tuesday the 20th. As nice as it was, it was also quite humid.
We will first go to the results sent in by Omar, Scott and Doinks from Cedar Grove. Then we will have the full recap of the action from Nutley. And we will finish this report with the scores sent in by John and Anish from The Wayne Bubble.
The Cedar Grove Results:
2 out of 3 Sets Match:
Omar Santos over Edwin Ortega, 5-7, 6-1, 10-5 (STB)! No Aces. Once they went to the Super Tiebreak, rank was no longer on the line in this match.
Samara's Notes: I thank Omar for sending in that result. We now go to Scott who sent in a little commentary as well.
Scott Bergenfeld over Jorge Solano, 6-2! Jorge: 1 Ace up the T (the first Ace of the season)!
The What Not from Scott: Omar and Edwin were finishing their match when I arrived and I had the chance to hit with Omar while waiting for Jorge. We left around 7:45 and all four courts were empty at that time.
Samara's Notes: I thank Scott for his report. Those courts would not remain empty for long as the next batch of GTA players would soon arrive. We now go to Doinks for the rest of the action at Cedar Grove.
Ryan Pienciak/Roger Karapin over Moka Pathan/Doinks Srinivasan, 6-1! No Aces (apparently). It was the official GTA Debut of Roger Karapin.
Moka Pathan/Doinks Srinivasan over Kris Srinivasan/Roger Karapin, 6-4! No Aces.
The Details from Doinks: Dino Celis also came, but he didn't want to play because he just had a "huuuuge" dinner just before. He left after 15 minutes. We ended the session early around 9pm as both Moka and Roger had to leave at that time.
Samara's Notes: I thank Doinks for her report. I also welcome Roger to the league. For the time being, we will call him "Mr. 600" as he is the 600th male player to have ever played in the GTA! That means we have had 100 men come into the league since the debut of "Mr. 500" Levy Lorenzo (aka "The Levitator") which was as recent as 2016!
We now head from Cedar Grove to Nutley for the full recap of how that session unfolded.
When Samara pulled into the parking lot at The Park Ave. Courts in Nutley at 8:40, he saw that all four courts were full! But all was not well when he first arrived.
On Court One, it seemed that Rich was engaged in a One-Setter with his buddy, "Ravishing" Randy Doran, but it turned out to be just part of a "King of The Mountain" session as their third wheel, "The Edge" Edgar Valencia was practicing his serve on Court Two.
And over on Court Four was a couple hitting against one another. Later in the night as they were leaving, they said "good bye" to both Rich and Edgar. So it seems they are part of the Meet-Up Group, but not the GTA. Also, Rich had said that earlier in the evening, "The Art Font" Arthur Fontanilla had played with them...but nothing official for the league.
Back to the problem that Samara saw upon his arrival...it was a bunch of high school kids on Court Three playing soccer! And then Frank saw an errant kick send the ball over in Edgar's direction. Already, Frank was fuming!
Not sure if Edgar said something to them or if the group noticed the anger in Frank's eyes as he headed toward the courts, but thankfully they all gathered their things and left at that time.
We then agreed to play Doubles and hoped to have a full match between the teams of Samara/Liu and Doran/Valencia. But the clock had other ideas!
The Park Ave. Results:
Frank Samara/Rich Liu over Randy Doran/Edgar Valencia, 6-4! Edgar: 1 Ace on Rich! The quick lowdown as I did not note who hit what winners where and when in order to save time (we were hoping to play a full match as we got it started on Court One at 8:50, but we did do the changeovers and I did write down quick notes to summarize each game): Rich was broken (Triple Break Point, broken on Double Break Point), Randy was broken (Triple Break Point cut down to Break Point, but then broken), but Frank was the first to hold serve (15-Love, 15-All then onto Double Game Point, the hold came on Game Point) for a 2-1 lead. Edgar also held (15-Love, 15-All, a nice sideline Ace against Rich for 30-15, then a Double Fault for 30-All, Game Point and the hold) and then Liu was broken again (15-Love, Double Fault for 15-All and then onto Double Break Point, bounce back to Deuce, then Game Point, 2nd Deuce and another Double Fault to make it Break Point, 3rd Deuce, Game Point, 4th Deuce, Game Point, 5th Deuce, Break Point and then the break to end the struggle) to lose the lead at 2-3! Doran was also broken again (15-Love went straight to Double Break Point and then a Double Fault to break himself) and level the set at 3-3, but then Samara was also broken (Triple Break Point, broken on Double Break Point) to lose the lead again, this time at 3-4. Valencia was also broken (Love-30, 15-30, Double Break Point, Break Point and the break) to knot the score once more, this time at 4-4! SWAT finally held serve (Love-15 shifted to 30-15, then it was 30-All where a Double Fault set up Break Point, but then it went to Deuce, Game Point and the hold) while The Ravishing One was broken a third straight time (Love-30 shifted to 30-All, then Break/Set Point where he once again broke himself with a Double Fault!) to drop the set at exactly 9:28.
Two minutes later, we started what we had hoped would be the 2nd Set of a full 2 out of 3 Sets Match. We had even discussed the possibility of playing a 10-Point Super Tiebreak in lieu of a full 3rd Set if Doran and Valencia took the 2nd Set in order to have it be a full match for ranking both teams in the Doubles Division. We were oh so close, but it was not to be...as you will now see!
Frank Samara/Rich Liu leading Randy Doran/Edgar Valencia, 5-2 (Incomplete as it was Deuce and lights out at 10pm)! No Aces. Here's how it was going: Frank held at Love and then Edgar was broken in a battle (15-Love, a Double Fault for 15-All and then point for point to Game Point, Deuce, Game Point and then another Double Fault to make it 2nd Deuce, Break Point, 3rd Deuce and yet another Double Fault to make it Break Point once again, 4th Deuce, Double Fault for Break Point and yet another Break Point to break himself) to get his team off to a 0-2 start in this set. Rich was broken (15-Love, a Double Fault for 15-All and then onto Double Break Point, then Break Point and then a Double Fault to break himself as well) and then Randy finally held serve (Love-15 shifted to 30-15, 30-All, Game Point and the hold) to level things at 2-2. Samara held again (30-Love, 30-15, Double Game Point and the hold) while Valencia was broken again (15-Love shifted to 15-30, 30-All, Break Point, Deuce, Break Point again and then the break) to fall to 2-4. Liu held (Triple Game Point, Double Fault for Double Game Point, but then the hold) to increase his team's lead to 5-2 and then Doran was on serve as he got off to a 30-Love lead, it was then 30-15 and then Double Game Point before that was reduced to Deuce and just as he was about to serve...LIGHTS OUT!
It was frustrating not to be able to finish the match...and not just for Samara/Liu, but for Doran/Valencia as well as both teams would have then been ranked in the Doubles Division. But, still, it was a lot of fun. The action was intense. Everyone but Rich got pelted with the ball hard at least once.
Randy noticed how much better Rich was playing since he has been competing fairly steadily up at The Wayne Bubble during the off-season. Liu was such a force at the net, that we kept coming up with new monikers for him (as we never really had a good one for him...first it was "Richie Rich" and then it was "Richie Running Things").
Well, tonight, we first called him "The Finisher" as he kept finishing points up at the net. But then when Randy noted how Rich was swatting away at those shots (not an insult...as most of the time those short and quick swings were successful), we then said he was "The Swatter." But, ultimately, Samara decided that "SWAT" was a cooler sounding moniker than "The Swatter."
It may have ended up being a short session officially, but it was one with much hard-fought action throughout the course of it...and it was a whole lot of fun and it felt like a bonus just getting to play in such spring-like weather in February.
We now head up to The Wayne Bubble for those scores.
The Wayne Bubble Results:
2 out of 3 Sets Doubles Match:
John Rizzo/Tom La over Mike Sindler/Jonathan La, 7-5, 6-1, as both teams entered the Doubles Division as the New # 142 and # 143 Ranked Teams respectively! It was the official GTA Return of Jonathan La. No Aces (apparently).
3 out of 5 Sets Doubles Match:
Ryan Pienciak/Nick Caputo over Chris Chiaro/Senthil Kumar, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4, to successfully defend their #126 in the Doubles Division! No Aces (apparently).
Samara's Notes: I thank John for collecting and reporting those scores. We now get the final batch of results from Anish.
Tony Shiao over Anish Mehta, 6-1! Total Ace count to come after the next full One-Setter and then the incomplete one to follow.
Anish Mehta over Tony Shiao, 6-3!
Anish Mehta leading Tony Shiao, 5-4 (Incomplete at Deuce when time ran out at 11pm)!
The AM News: Although we intended to play it as a full match, we were not really thinking about it being a challenge for rank as Tony was likely unaware that the season had officially begun. We had to stop right at 11pm, mid-point. The match could have ended in 30 seconds…or could have lasted another 20 minutes. It was a tough match and too bad there was no proper closure to it.
Samara's Notes: I thank Anish for reporting the results along with his additional commentary.
Well, it turned out to be quite a Season Opening Day (and evening) for the GTA!
Sincerely,
Frank Samara
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