I’d like to thank all the members of our Tennis Club for the great turnouts we had for our Fun Days in 2009. What makes a Club a lot of fun is its members’ active participation in such events. Thank you and let’s continue having FUN in 2010!

My gratitude too to our board members; they have made our Club a success year in and year out. On behalf of our members, I’d like to extend a special “Thank you” to Arnold, Karl, Ben, Nancy, Sherri and Liz for a job well done. Your hard work and dedication is appreciated by all.

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Gino Baldisseri, President

It’s a good time to renew your 2010 South San Francisco Tennis Club membership fees.

New Members*: $30 per year ($15 if joining after June 30th)
Renewals: $20 if paid before January 31st. $30 if paid after January 30th.

* The New Member fee is $30 for anyone who joins the SSFTC anytime during the calendar year solely to compete in USTA Leagues. No discount given if joining after June 30th.

To renew your membership or join the Club, please print out the membership form, complete the information and send it to our P.O. Box with your check made out to SSFTC.  We need to update membership addresses and email lists on the SSFTC Roster.  If you are planning to play on a USTA Team, you must be on the official roster. Make checks payable to:

SSFTC
P. O. Box 5117
South San Francisco, CA 94080

The Winners! Orange Park's 4.0 Mens Team

Congratulations to the 4.0 mens team for winning the Sectional Championships for Orange Park!  They can now represent Northern California at Nationals!  Good luck to you guys! All 3 days of competition was hard fought and well deserved, all matches were won at 3-2!

See the team’s USTA Page

Comment from the captain:
“The field consisted of Orange Park, Washington Park, Mitchell Park and La Cantera. We knew that our toughest opponent(s) would be Mitchell Park on day 1, then Washington Park on day 3. It all came down to our lineups for all 3 days. There was a lot of decision-making in the background and we involved our players. But a joint decision on how we were to line up for all 3 days was the reason we are going to Nationals! We simply outguessed the other teams. This is the 3rd Orange Park team I have taken to Sectionals, but like they say, 3rd time’s the charm!!!”

Orange Park's 4.0 Mens Team

A big CONGRATULATIONS to Orange Park’s 4.0 Mens Team (captained by Robert Pacheco and co-captain Danny Reyes) for winning their District Championships this past weekend in Napa!!! Woo hoo!

They also had 3 rounds of playoffs just to make it to Districts, and once there, they proved tough to beat! Congratulations, team!

See the team’s USTA Page

2009 District Championships - Orange Park's 3.5 Womens Team

Congratulations to OP’s 3.5 Womens Team, who made it through 3 rounds of playoff matches to move on to the Districts Championships in Napa (Aug 14 to 16).  They made a great run of it but fell just short of the title…they came in 2nd place.  That is still quite an accomplishment!  Great job by Captain, Wendy Ashton and Co-Captain, Tammy Mason, for a terrific season. There’s always next year, ladies!

Proud to be clad in Orange

Click to view the team’s USTA Page

I am very sorry for posting this so late.  I forgot I took pictures!  These are some of the awesome guys of Orange Park’s 3.5 Senior Mens Team.  The District Championships were held in Elk Grove from April 17 to 19, 2009.  I came to watch them on Saturday only.  They came up just a tad short against a couple of tough teams but played well over all.

Jay

Ed

Bill

Greg

Mike

Collin & Mike

Link to score page.

It was a nice day to be out in the sun. You guys get ‘em next year!

Liz

Whoopie!!!  Orange Park’s 7.0 Mixed Team (captained by George Rodrigues) won their first playoff match against a strong Westlake team yesterday at Westlake’s home courts no less!  The victory couldn’t have been sweeter.  Last time they played, Westlake swept 0-3.  Revenge is so much sweeter when you take it to your opponents during a playoff match!

Nettie and Simon had very tough opponents and couldn’t get pass the guy’s overheads. Stan and Claudia played very well against their 4.0 female and 3.0 guy. Even though it looked bad for OP at times, they came through!

Mike and Lee also played against a 4.0 female and 3.0 guy team, although many would insist the guy ain’t no 3.0!  Nevertheless, with the deciding match on their shoulders, they came through in the 3rd set for The Win! They played great in tough windy conditions (not to mention overlooking bad line calls). Lee kept it in play in the back court and Mike took care of business on the short balls. Way to go, team!

Many thanks to those who came out to cheer for Orange Park (Lucy, George, Wendy, Tammy, Liz, Ed, Ernesto, etc). I think the noise and support unnerved their opponents. Their cheers were weak!

OK, don’t get cocky now…you have one more playoff match to go! Good Luck OP!

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

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.

Sherri Keach
Tennis Activities Director