3/16/18:
"30 players (1 New) compete at Levypalooza at The Bubble!":
There was a very special session of GTA Friday Night Tennis at The Wayne Bubble to honor the sendoff of one of the most admired and respected competitors in the league - "The Levitator" Levy Lorenzo. Even though he was only with us for a couple of seasons, he made a major impact on those who were fortunate enough to have the chance to get to know him. His kind and generous spirit along with a humble yet humorous demeanor won him many fans and friends. And his on-court performances led to many wins as well.
For the past few seasons now, we have called our GTA Season Opener Parties - "Bubblepalooza!" Well, it just hit me now as I write this report that we had somewhat of a "Levypalooza" as this session came much closer to mimicking those larger parties rather than our usual GTA Friday Night Party sessions.
Once we found out the Friday night before that Levy would soon be moving back to his native Philippines permanently to enjoy his retirement and that he was already planning to have one last on-court outing at The Bubble, we decided we wanted to do something a little above and beyond the regular session. Plus, we also accurately expected a greater demand from the GTA faithful to be there that night.
As "Hollywood" Frank Samara started promoting the event, "The Riz" John Rizzo went into his usual organizer mode (for these Bubble events) as he began collecting registrations and making plans for snacks, beverages and a special "retirement" cake as well.
While Rizzo's usual focus was primarily the registrations and then the above accommodations, Samara's role was making sure that all those that attended had their fair share of court time at The Bubble. Unlike the Bubblepalooza events where we sometimes try to go for a record-setting attendance rate of the players, this time around we settled on a number that was more manageable...somewhere between those events (up to forty or more) and the usual GTA Friday Night Party session (maxing out at 16 players for two hours of non-stop action).
We capped it at 30 players while expanding the session from the weekly two-hour session to a four-plus hour event (like those Bubblepalooza Season Openers). It ended up working out quite fine. We were also able to keep the cost the same ($20 per person) by not ordering hot food. Still, there were plenty of snacks.
And some of the attendees brought their own food while also partaking in the "BYOB - Bring Your Own Beer" billing also announced along the way. I'm not entirely sure who brought what, but I do want to single out two of the biggest food contributors - Tito "The Titan" Castolo and Fadia "Finesse" Nicolas. I thank them and anyone else who chipped in to expand the offerings.
One quick funny side story...when John ordered the cake (chocolate...Levy's favorite), he instructed them to write "Good luck Levy" on it. When he got there to pick it up, it instead said: "Happy Birthday Levy!" Thankfully, they were able to change that to, "Happy Retirement Levy." Ah well, all's well than ends well.
Before I go further with the details of how this session have unfolded, I just want to once again thank The Riz for offering up his time, services and funds to host this event for the benefit of the GTA and also as a tribute to Levy. And I acted as the host of the session in the traditional sense of how we use the term "hosting", i.e. I collected the scores of all the action along the way.
Usually in my results write-ups, I detail the order of entry and/or appearance as the session progresses...but not this time around! There were just too many people to note...and they came in waves! All I will say is was yet another epic session that we hope leaves a lasting impression on Levy as he looks back to his time in the GTA. He seemed to be very happy with it and also added it was the first time he ever played tennis past midnight.
Besides the thirty official competitors, GTA Women's Champion: Laura "The Aura" Gawley and her hubby, "The Rogue" Rob Gawley, made a special cameo appearance to see and salute Levy. They arrived around 9pm and stayed close to half an hour.
Also, while running The Bubble this particular evening, "Master MC" Mark Cipollini often came by to watch the action and chit-chat with the attendees sitting out in The Lounge area in between being out on the courts. And while the vast majority of competitors stuck around for most of the evening, there were some (which we knew ahead of time) who chose to be there for the first half while there were others who made in in time for the second half of the session.
Let's get to the action!
The Wayne Bubble Results:
After a roughly five to six minute hitting session on all four courts, the first round of One-Setters all began within the minute marked 8:21!
Jorge Solano/Tim Nguyen over Tom Heidt/Charlie Vreeland, 6-0! No Aces. This somewhat surprisingly lopsided set ended at exactly 8:49. The games must have been long as 28 minutes is quite a respectable amount of time for a "bagel set," and especially more so when you consider they decided to forego the changeovers in this one.
Fadia Nicolas/Arlene Hyde over Kathy Sheldon/Denise Savino, 6-3! Arlene: 2 Aces (one on each); and Fadia: 1 Ace on Denise. It was Women's Doubles action on Court Two and it finished at precisely 8:48. Like the guys on nearby Court One, these ladies also decided to forego the changeovers.
Scott Bergenfeld/Matt Aery over Ralph Bernard/Erik Jensen, 6-4! Ralph: 1 Ace on Matt; and Erik: 1 Ace on Matt! It was the official GTA Debut of Matt Aery. There was some hard-hitting action on Court Three (aka The Show Court) as the crowd in the lounge found it to be quite entertaining. It was done at 8:53...pretty lengthy considering they also had foregone the changeovers.
Samara's Notes: Afterward, I had the chance to meet Matt for the first time. He is a very nice guy who recently moved to the area and has been looking for nearby venues for tennis. Upon hearing about the upcoming GTA Intermediate Invitational Tournament, he decided to register for it (as did Jorge Solano as well).
Tito Castolo/John Palaca over Levy Lorenzo/Sam Wong, 7-6 (7-2)! No Aces. This one was played on Court Four and it lasted the longest (ending at exactly 8:59). Not only did it go to the Tiebreak, but this was the only court of the four in this initial round of action engaging in the traditional changeovers every two games.
Samara's Notes: The quality of pure Doubles-style tennis was quite high in this one as these four very experienced competitors were seemingly playing on-court chess with one another in terms of their strategy and placements. Tito often plays the role of "The Puppet Master" in these situations as he seemingly has the ball (and often his opponents as well) on a string. Meanwhile, Sam had put in an early request to John to make sure he had the chance to team with his buddy, Levy, at least once this night (Mr. Lorenzo was the one to bring Mr. Wong into the GTA in the first place). It was true camaraderie on this court.
Just a side note, from here forward I no longer noted which courts were engaging in changeovers and which ones were not as it was enough of a task to try to record results and suggest new foursomes along the way. John often aided in the groupings which we tried to handle (as always) with consideration as to either who has been sitting out the longest while mixing in new arrivals or getting those who will be leaving early back out on the courts as often as possible while they will still be around. For the most part, it worked out quite well. Now back to the action!
Jorge Solano/Denise Savino over Tim Nguyen/Fadia Nicolas, 6-4! No Aces. This foursome took Court Three and the Mixed Doubles action lasted from 8:55 to 9:39.
Dan Knitzer/Laurie Boughton over Janice Wang/Natalia Sout, 6-3! No Aces. Young Dan (aka The Dark Knight) certainly did not mind being the lone guy with the three ladies on Court Two as this one lasted from 8:57 to 9:30.
Fausto Murg/Arlene Hyde over Mike Mole/Kathy Sheldon, 6-1! No Aces. Court One hosted this Mixed Doubles action from 8:59 to 9:22.
Senthil Kumar/Rich Liu over Ralph Bernard/Scott Bergenfeld, 6-3! Ralph: 1 Ace on Senthil! This foursome engaged in some fierce action on Court Four. They got it underway at 9:05. While finishing on Court Four at 9:44 is not an unusual amount of time (39 minutes), it turns out they had actually started a second One-Setter as they did not realize more people were waiting to play (it seems most of the group in the lounge area had drifted toward the back of it for food and drink). So, later in the night, the same foursome got to take another court to finish that in-progress set.
Don Moya/Charlie Vreeland over Tom Heidt/Erik Jensen, 6-1! Don: 1 Ace on Erik; Charlie: 1 Ace on Erik; and Tom: 1 Ace on Charlie! They got the job done on Court One as it had begun at 9:30 and was finished by 9:57.
Fausto Murg/Elias Eid over Dino Celis/Matt Aery, 6-1! Fausto: 2 Aces (one on each); and Dino: 1 Ace on Elias! This action took place on Court Two and lasted from 9:37 to 10:04.
Tito Castolo/John Palaca over Levy Lorenzo/Sam Wong, 7-5! Tito: 1 Ace on Levy! This time around, the same foursome of buddies (same teams as well) got together on Court Three and played from 9:44 to 10:24. Being the Show Court that it is, the excellent Doubles action on the court entertained the throng that was in the nearby lounge area.
Mike Mole/Kathy Sheldon over Dan Knitzer/Arlene Hyde, 7-5! No Aces. This Mixed Doubles action occupied Court Four from 9:50 to 10:43. Mike and Kat had leads of 4-0, 4-1 and 5-1 before Dan and Arlene fought back to make it much more interesting.
Fadia Nicolas/Laurie Boughton over Janice Wang/Natalia Sout, 7-5! No Aces. This excellent Women's Doubles action took place on Court One and lasted from 10pm to 10:40.
Senthil Kumar/Rich Liu over Ralph Bernard/Scott Bergenfeld, 6-2! No Aces. Now on Court Two, this foursome revisited the action they had started before on Court Four with Kumar/Liu already up 2-1. Well, it did not take long for Senthil and Rich to get the job done as the resumption of action got underway at 10:08 and was over by 10:22!
Samara's Notes: Scott said (in front of Ralph) that he just felt they were not a winning combo together, perhaps because they are too much alike. They are both big forehand hitters who like to swing away, often with reckless abandon. When those shots land, they can be deadly. But when I say "land," I mean within the lines of the court. For two One-Setters, most of their otherwise lethal bombs were landing long and well beyond the baseline. But Rich also confessed that neither set was pretty as all four of them seemed to be engaging in a contest of Double Faults.
Don Moya/Elias Eid over Jorge Solano/Dino Celis, 6-2! Don: 1 Ace on Jorge! This one was contested on Court Two from 10:23 to 10:51.
Rich Liu/Fausto Murg over Scott Bergenfeld/Erik Jensen, 6-3! No Aces. This was conducted on Court Three from 10:29 to 11:05.
Sam Wong/Doinks Srinivasan over Senthil Kumar/John Palaca, 6-4! No Aces. This foursome occupied Court Four from 10:38 to 11:14, but that does not tell the entire tale. Doinks was a late arrival (as she said she would be) at 10:30. To her credit, she got onto this court as the lone lady amongst the gents and decided to jump right into official action without any warm-up. At that time, the teams were Sam and John versus Senthil and Doinks.
Seven minutes into it (at 10:45), it was decided that the teams should be switched in order to achieve a fairer balance (I don't know who initiated this or decided why it was not fair or in which team's favor), but they did seem to achieve their end goal (which ended at 11:14, by the way) as a 6-4 score does indeed indicate a well-balanced match.
Levy Lorenzo/Tito Castolo over Mike Mole/Dan Knitzer, 6-3! Dan: 1 Ace on Tito! Court One was the site of this battle of Youth versus Experience. And it was Experience that ruled the day (the night, actually) as the two crafty Filipino veterans emerged victorious against two of the younger members of the GTA. The war was waged from 10:45 to 11:30.
After this One-Setter, Mike ended up having a hitting session with Janice Wang. And then Natalia Sout later joined in on Janice's side. Eventually, Dan found his way back to the court for some Mixed Doubles action...which we will get to later on in this report. And, actually, we are getting a little bit ahead of ourselves as Janice was first involved in the following One-Setter.
Don Moya/Janice Wang over Tom Heidt/Charlie Vreeland, 6-3! No Aces. Court Two hosted this one from 10:55 to 11:22. Tom requested that John and Frank put this match together as Mr. Heidt wanted to challenge his mentor, Mr. Moya, with his buddy (Mr. Vreeland) in tow. They took on "The Power Couple" of Moya and Wang and put up a decent fight, but failed to emerge victorious.
Elias Eid/Natalia Sout over Fadia Nicolas/Laurie Boughton, 6-1! No Aces. This was contested on Court Three from 11:09 to 11:35 as Elias now took the role of Charlie of "Charlie's Angels" being the lone guy on a court with three ladies. It was also a happy happenstance as Fadia approached Elias afterward as she had rightfully assumed he was Lebanese as is she.
Going into this next One-Setter, one much consider the following (reprinted from previous Bubblepalooza results reports):
Both Samara and Rizzo, who are always so preoccupied with keeping everything smooth-sailing at these bigger Bubblepalooza-like events, like to wait until late in the session to play...ensuring that everyone else gets at least two opportunities to play along the way (though, this time around, it was more like three or four times to play with the lesser crowd than in some of those past events). John is manning the match-ups and food service while Frank is also aiding in putting together some of the match-ups while also recording all the scores.
By the time they both get into action, they are already somewhat exhausted and then they continue to be distracted by what is going on out on the other courts while they are playing. So, this was not the best outing for Samara (though Rizzo seemed to thrive this time around).
John Rizzo/Scott Bergenfeld over Frank Samara/Dino Celis, 6-4! Dino: 1 Ace on Scott! It went like this: John was broken (15-Love, Double Fault for 15-All, 30-15 and then a shift to Break Point and the break), Dino was broken (started with a big sideline Ace against Scott, then it went from 30-Love to 30-All where a Double Fault set up Break Point and then came the break), but Scott was the first to hold serve (15-Love, 15-All then onto Double Game Point, a Double Fault for Game Point, but then the hold) to go up 2-1. Frank also held (30-Love, 30-15, Double Game Point and the hold) and then Rizzo was broken again (Love-30 shifted to Game Point, but then came Deuce, Break Point and the break) to lose the lead for his team at 2-3. Celis held (30-Love, 30-15, Double Game Point and the hold) to increase his team's lead to 4-2 only to then have Bergenfeld hold again (30-Love, 30-15, Double Game Point and the hold), Samara was then broken (Love-30, 15-30, Double Break Point and the break), The Riz finally hold (30-Love, 30-15, Double Game Point, Game Point and the hold) and then The Scorpion Dragon was broken (15-Love then point for point until 30-All, Break/Match Point, Deuce, it ended on the 2nd Break/Match Point) to take a tough loss as the opposition offered up a solid comeback effort. We four played this on Court Four from 11:16 to 11:56.
Samara's Notes: I was in decent form for the first half of it while John seemingly got off to a slightly sluggish start. But about midway through, the tables turned as I either "shanked" or overcooked a couple of would-be surefire Overhead Smash winners which then made me gun-shy as I was then backing off what were clear opportunities for redemption along the way. I felt bad as it often led to Dino having to cover more court than he normally would when teaming with me. I wasn't lazy...I was just out of rhythm, distracted...and then I simply became disgusted with my own performance. To quote Kramer of "Seinfeld," "Look away! I'm hideous!" And this is not to take anything away from the job done by John and Scott as these old pals who had not teamed together in many years seemingly gelled just when they needed to in order to get the job done.
I immediately removed myself from the court, head hung in shame as I asked Don Moya to take my place (for the record, we often asked Mark Cipollini to join us and become the 31st player of the evening, but he was too busy running things and/or cleaning up after us). While waiting for The Adonis to take the court, Scott and Dino had a brief hitting session with one another.
Senthil Kumar/John Palaca over Rich Liu/Doinks Srinivasan, 6-0! No Aces. Court Two hosted this one from 11:25 to 11:40...a bagel prepped in just fifteen minutes time!
Elias Eid/Fadia Nicolas over Levy Lorenzo/Laurie Boughton, 6-3! No Aces. These four put on a show on the Show Court otherwise known as Court Three from 11:38 to 12:06 as Levy and Laurie got run over by The Lebanese Express!
Dan Knitzer/Janice Wang over Mike Mole/Natalia Sout, 6-4! No Aces. This Mixed Doubles action was played on Court One as it got underway around 11:40. Not sure when it finished as it then went into another set that would never find its way to a full finish (more on that later in this report).
Tito Castolo/John Palaca over Rich Liu/Doinks Srinivasan, 6-2! No Aces. This was conducted on Court Two from 11:44 to 12:09 as Rich and Doinks fared a little better together this time around.
Don Moya/Dino Celis over John Rizzo/Scott Bergenfeld, 5-5 (7-4), an unofficial result! No Aces. It is a shame this one did not see its way to a full and official conclusion on Court Four (they got it underway at exactly 11:59 and it ended in a premature fashion at 12:41). Mark was trying to get things wrapped up and kudos to him for allowing us to go overtime as the original plan was to try to have all action end by 12:30. So when he heard they were at 5-5, he suggested a Tiebreak take place at that moment and all four were on-board with that decision. It allowed for some measure of satisfaction for Don and Dino, but it also meant this one cannot be considered to be an official result for the record books (i.e. mostly nomination consideration at the end of the season). Oh well! Still, it seemed all four had fun in a battle full of hard shots and good gets.
Elias Eid/Fadia Nicolas leading Senthil Kumar/Levy Lorenzo, 6-5 (Incomplete)! No Aces. This one had begun on Court Three at 12:10. It had to be cut short at 12:41.
Dan Knitzer/Janice Wang leading Mike Mole/Natalia Sout, 3-1 (Incomplete)! No Aces. Not sure when this makeshift half-set (which is what it ended up becoming) got started on Court One as it picked up where the previous full One-Setter left off, but they called it a night at 12:35.
Frank Samara/Doinks Srinivasan tied with Tito Castolo/Laurie Boughton, 2-2 (Incomplete)! No Aces. To save time, we decided to forego the changeovers...but I memorized how the games went...and this is how it was all going: Frank was broken (Love-15 to 30-15, Double Fault for 30-All, Game Point, Deuce, Break Point, 2nd Deuce, Break Point and the break) and then Laurie held in an epic battle (Love-15 shifted straight to Double Game Point which was reduced to Deuce and then it went to Break Point, 2nd Deuce and then all Game Points as Frank was playing his usual "Gatekeeper" role quite well returning from the Ad side of the court to take it all the way back again and again until it got to the 6th Deuce and yet another Game Point when Samara failed to take advantage of an open court shot for a potential 7th Deuce when his attempted drop shot met the top of the tape instead which allowed the hold) for 2-0! But Doinks then held in impressive fashion (Triple Game Point, Double Game Point and then the hold) while Tito battled but was ultimately broken (15-Love then point for point until 30-All, Break Point, Deuce, Game Point, 2nd Deuce, Break Point and the break) as everyone got to go happy (though likely not fully satisfied) with a 2-All tie! We started this one on Court Two at exactly 12:12 and ended it at 12:34.
Samara's Notes: I was loathe to take the court again after stinking up the joint on Court Four earlier. I was busy helping Mark clean up the mess in the lounge area when I heard the cries from Court Two seeking a fourth player. As there was nobody else around to step up to the plate (Mark was too busy picking up dirty paper plates!), I then decided I had to "take one for the team" and get back out there.
Again, I started off rather decently only to fade (mentally, not physically) as the contest wore on...so I have to give the MVP title to Doinks for a spirited effort...especially so late in the evening (though she was still the freshest of the bunch due to her late arrival).
Many still in attendance, thankful for the overtime and the overall party itself, aided in the cleanup efforts to make things easier for Mark and Don so that they could get the entire Bubble closed up sooner. All in all, it is simply amazing how many players and how much action we had over the course of a session that lasted about four hours and forty-five minutes! Once again, thanks to all those who participated and helped us make some more GTA history...and also give Levy a proper sendoff.
All the best,
Frank Samara
gtasamara5@gmail.com