4/18/18:
"Ortega-Rei, Aery-Gottlieb in Wayne, Doyle-Wong, Pienciak-Mole in C.G., Nutley action!":
There were three sessions of GTA Wednesday Tennis: the first one was at The Nellis Drive Courts in Wayne (near The Wayne Bubble) and it got underway in the late afternoon and carried on into the evening and featured two matches from the GTA Intermediate Invitational Tournament. The first was the Round of 32 Match featuring Top Seed: "Salsa Picante" Edwin Ortega against "T-Pain" Thiyagesh Rei. The second was the Play-In Match between "Meta" Matt Aery and Jeremy "Got Game" Gottlieb. In between, there was a couple of One-Setters featuring Rei taking on "Stealth" Omar Santos (reports came in from all but Omar).
The second was at The Cedar Grove Courts as "Kevlar" Kevin Doyle and "Samson of Seasons" Sam Wong got together for their GTA Intermediate Invitational Round of 32 Match (with both reporting). And then it was "The Lumberjack" Ryan Pienciak and "Del Brotro" Mike Mole facing off in their GTA Championship Tournament Quarterfinal Match (with both reporting). There was some additional Doubles action also reported by Kevin and Ryan.
The third was at The Park Ave. Courts in Nutley hosted by "SWAT" Rich Liu (as he had sent the word out to the league that there would be a session). But, once again, the reporting duties were assigned to Laurie "Suge Boogie" Boughton.
Let's first go to the results from Wayne.
The Nellis Drive Courts Results:
GTA Intermediate Invitational Round of 32 Match:
Edwin Ortega over Thiyagesh Rei, 6-3, 6-0, to successfully defend his # 2 Rank in the Intermediate Division while also advancing to the Round of 16 of the GTA Intermediate Invitational Tournament! Edwin: 2 Aces!
Edwin's Editorial: The weather was cooperating, so Thiyagesh and I agreed to play at The Nellis Drive Courts. We met around 4pm and started to play around 4:15. He has good serves, but had a few more double faults and errors than what he'd wanted. I managed to drop in a couple of Aces and he had a few drop shots for himself. We finished around 5pm.
Samara's Notes: I appreciate Edwin's timely reporting and commentary. And now we turn it over to Thiyagesh who reported his One-Setters against Omar.
Omar Santos over Thiyagesh Rei, 6-1! Omar: 2 Aces!
Omar Santos over Thiyagesh Rei, 6-4! No Aces.
T-Time: I broke three of his service games in the 2nd One-Setter, but again I had a lot of unforced errors and double faults. Still, a lot to learn! Omar and Edwin were kind enough to give me some pointers.
Samara's Notes: I appreciate Thiyagesh's timely reporting and commentary as well. We now go to the dual reporting from Matt and Jeremy.
GTA Intermediate Invitational Play-In Match:
Jeremy Gottlieb over Matt Aery, 6-0, 6-0, to advance to the Round of 32 of the GTA Intermediate Invitational Tournament! In the process, Gottlieb and Aery entered the Intermediate Division as the New # 47 and # 48 Ranked Players respectively. No Aces.
The Gist from Jeremy: We played from 6pm to 6:25. It was great weather! It is always fun playing. Thank you…and I'm looking forward to the next round.
Samara's Notes: I thank Jeremy for the very timely reporting (immediately after the match) and I also thank Matt who reported the same score just a short while later.
The Consequences: Gottlieb now advances to the Round of 32 where he will face Jay "The Rising" Phoenix.
We now head over to Cedar Grove.
The Cedar Grove Results:
GTA Intermediate Invitational Round of 32 Match:
Sam Wong over Kevin Doyle, 6-2, 6-3, to become the New # 15 Ranked Player in the Intermediate Division while also advancing to the Round of 16 of the GTA Intermediate Invitational Tournament! Sam: 1 Ace!
Sam says: We started at 6pm and finished at 7:05.
The Kevlar Commentary: I really should play more Singles if I am going to play in these tournaments as I am too often out of position, etc. I kept unconsciously gravitating toward the sidelines which (of course) is fatal in Singles…and Sam took advantage of it every time! LOL!
Sam said he plays a lot of Singles (and it showed). He is also a great guy and I am glad I got to meet him. He asked me to call him sometimes to play and I will definitely do that.
Samara's Notes: I thank both for reporting and appreciate Kevin's additional commentary. Kev also had an additional result to report.
Kevin Doyle/Robin Wilson over Brenda Jordan/Dawn Peterson, 6-4! No Aces. It was a hard-fought and very even contest. Brenda's shoulder was bothering her, but she played through it. There was not really much action at Cedar Grove, at least not when I was there. I noticed Jordan Bachvaroff hitting with someone and Mike Mole was also hitting with someone, but that was about it.
Samara's Notes: I thank Kevin once again for his very comprehensive reporting. Jordan often hits with non-GTA players, so I won't both trying to track down any results from him. As for Mike, he was likely hitting against his opponent…Ryan Pienciak. We now turn this report over to both of them to hear about their match.
GTA Championship Tournament Quarterfinal:
Ryan Pienciak over Mike Mole, 6-2, 6-1, to successfully defend his # 1 Rank in the Advanced Division while advancing to the Semifinals of the GTA Championship Tournament! No Aces.
The Mole Memo: We played from 7:40 to 8:30. It was a really hard match...excellent defense that Ryan had. I made lots of errors.
The Ryan Report: We were going to play Friday night, but we both wound up at Cedar Grove on this night (randomly), so we decided to just play the match. Mike was hitting it hard and making me run all over, but I was able to get enough would-be winners back to stay in it.
Afterward we played one set of Doubles.
Ryan Pienciak/Mike Mole over Nathan Fernandes/Natalia Sout, 7-5! No Aces.
Samara's Notes: I thank both Mike and Ryan for their very timely and comprehensive reporting. We now take this report to Nutley and get the word from Laurie Boughton.
The Park Ave. Courts Results:
First, there was some unofficial Canadian Doubles as Fadia Nicolas chose to be alone (to get some exercise) against me (Laurie) and Nick Inciong (we won…don't know the score). And then…
Rich Boland/Fadia Nicolas over Rich Liu/Laurie Boughton, 6-2! No Aces.
Edgar Valencia over Rich Liu, 6-3! No Aces.
Rich Liu leading Edgar Valencia, 3-1, (Incomplete when the lights went out)!
Rich claimed the first One-Setter was won by Edgar with his power serve and his wicked drop shots. :-)
Samara's Notes: I thank Laurie for once again reporting from the Nutley session. She also had mentioned seeing Elias Eid and a friend playing Singles there. I reached out for Elias via e-mail to see if he had any results he wanted to report, but did not hear back from him in time for this report…so it will have to remain unofficial.
Also, Umang "Ash" Jain let me know that he only had a hitting session with Arthur "Art" Fontanilla…they never played anything official. I thank him for that update as well.
Sincerely,
Frank Samara
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