Message from the USTA Team Activities Director

We have a lot of fun events set up for 2009. There are several USTA teams now formed for the Adult league starting in April 2009. You must be a member of SSFTC in order to play on any USTA team that plays out of Orange Park.

Please click on USTA Teams to view the teams participating out of Orange Park.

If you have questions about forming a USTA tennis team, please contact me at ben4ac@aol.com

See you on the tennis courts!

Ben Chew
USTA Team Activities Director

Senior Mens 3.5 Team – On to Districts!

Congratulations to Orange Park’s Senior 3.5 Mens Team! They just concluded a great season winning both playoff matches. In the second round of Playoffs, they beat a tough SFTC team on their turf 2-1! But it was so very close. Two matches went to tiebreakers with scores like 10-7 and 12-10!

Team Captain, Ben’s comments: George and I tried our best but ended up losing to two guys that served very well. We played in the No.1 spot, losing 6-2, 6-2. George and I felt demoralized. I was sitting up in the landing wondering if I blew this match. We were watching Greg and Mike not knowing what happened. They were sitting on the court a long time. We couldn’t tell by their body language whether they’d won or lost. When they finally came up to the landing, they told us they won a very close match. The scores were 5-7, 6-4, and 10-7! That gave us hope that we still had a chance to win the team match. But the nail-biting continued…

Last to finish at No.2 was Bill and Ed. The other team informed us that we had already lost the first set 5-7. So we had a MUST WIN situation on our hands! Bill and Ed pulled it out and won the second set 6-4. We all were watching and cheering as they played the Super Tiebreaker. Bill hit a shot down the line on Eric Morgenthaler for match point and then Abraham Yang put up a short lob for Ed to put the overhead away to win the match at 12-10!

Ed’s comment: I knew it was match point and I told myself NOT to screw it up but I had a brief second of fear that I might!

Congratulations to everyone on the Orange Park Senior team! They can hold their heads up high as they lived up to their name sake Orange Crush!

Next up – the District Championships, which will be held on April 17-19 at Laguna Creek Racquet Club, Elk Grove. If you’re able to go, do cheer the team on!

Link to score page.