...was a blast. (Photos by Tom Wassner)
| The first round robin of the year will take place on Wednesday, May 25. Tennis starts at 6:00 p.m. The meal will be catered. |
The Memorial Day Party is Monday. Regulars know what that means: an all-day, all-court, all-ecstasy round robin, pick-up doubles, barbecue/potluck extravaganza. The club, as usual, will supply hot dogs (loads and loads of them due to you only eat them at club picnics), hamburgers, chips, beer, tonics, and with any luck, a turkey or two. There is a potluck part to the party. Members are asked to contribute, if they are of a mind to, according to the first initial of their last names:
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News from The Field Two members of the Cambridge Tennis Club, Esther Williams and Jessie von Hippel, were members of the Super Tiebreakers team who represented New England in the Women's 8.0 division and played in the 2004 USA League Tennis Super Senior Nationals held May 12-15 in Kansas City, MO. The Super Tiebreakers played five rounds in their flight, and won it over a tough Texas team 3-0, with Esther Williams playing in the No.2 doubles with Janet Burke of Boston, and Jessie von Hippel (captain) playing in the No.3 doubles with Doris Gould of Newton. In the finals the New England team came in 2nd, losing 10-8 in the third set match tiebreaker after splitting the first two matches with a strong Mid-Atlantic team. Although there were some tornado warnings on May 11, the matches proceeded indoors on May 13 due to the rain and moved outdoors in sunny windy weather at various tennis clubs in the Kansas City area. Over 600 players, men and women, from all over the country participated.
And as promised, we offer some comments from readers.
Let's start with Bill:
"We had a tough time getting the courts open this year. We had an enormous amount of mud to clear off the courts. But the crew was terrific, they hung in there and I thank them for their hard work. And I thank the members for their patience. Welcome to the new season. Try to play a lot."
-Bill Crusco
On the opening (some representative comments):
-It would be nice if we could open early some year. Longwood was open weeks before we were. (x 10 squared)
-Why didn't we pump the water out this year?
-Couldn't we cover the courts with plastic in the Fall?
-How about using nail guns for the tapes and maybe save the backs of the workers?
From the court rehab crew:
-Oldtimers on the crew tell newcomers: how good is this? If you went to a gym for this much of a workout, you'd pay big money, but HERE, WE PAY YOU. Same with the tanning salon.
-"Nailing the lines on court 5 was like driving nails into tofu."
-D.B.
And one more on the opening:
"Do not think your work goes un-noticed. Watchers of the web site and passers-by, and those who both watch and pass, follow your doings with keen interest and the closest attention. We wish you well and applaud your progress."
-Ishmael
And playing at the club:
-"Playing on these courts - it's like playing on clouds - with a nerfball."
-"Playing on this stuff (clay) - we couldn't put the ball away. The points went on forever. I love this kind of tennis."
-Jim Baldwin
-"I played at ******* and the courts were just awful. It's supposed to be such a fancy place. Some places on the court were spongy, some places hard. We had all kinds of bad bounces. The tapes weren't straight and were coming up here and there. Just awful. I never really appreciated how good our courts are until I played at *******."
-W.C.
-"The newspage is wrong: these courts aren't made of clay, they're made of karma, good karma. There's such effort put into these courts. The surface is so good, the lines so straight. The courts are beautiful. Playing here is restorative."
-Q.C.
And one from Fast Phil's Barber Shop:
'Hi to everyone. And remember: I love this game.'
-Phil Soccorso
And one more from the field, far afield:
Nature Girl explains flowers: "The Second Law of Thermodynamics, or maybe it's the First, posits that you can't create matter or destroy matter. There is also entropy involved in this matter business. Entropy means that everything decays and rusts and goes bad. (I should note that the concept of entropy was originally introduced by Rudolf Clausius in 1865.) Now Mother Nature doesn't want us to be depressed by all the entropy and positing and so on, so She gives us flowers."
-Nature Girl
The club book, right now, should be in your hands, or in your mailbox. The website also has up-to-date info. The Rules section, the Governors and Committees and Activities (tournaments, round robins, etc) sections are current for 2005. Also, the Waiting List (which is not featured in the book) is current and ordered on the website. (The Waiting List and the list of New Members can be accessed through the FAQ page.) We thank the committee heads for making the information available in such a timely fashion and we urge all public spirited readers to proof-read.
'Members', and' Reservation Requests' are not active parts of the site nowadays. 'Timelines' is for adepts.
Take a look
We'll keep the tournament draws available on-line (including all of the results), thanks to the Java Kid:
And the previous tournaments:
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Tournaments |
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And here's the saga of 2002's tournaments (so's we can compare and contrast):
And the saga of the year before (we're mighty fancy here, and mighty grateful to the Java Kid for doing all this work):
Phew.
Here's a link to the espn site, with pro ranking.
And a club member (let's call him Sol) suggests a link to the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, R.I. The site is rich.
The Yearbook link will take you to the last newspage from 2004. From there you can see the whole of the Persistant Archive of last year's news.
Website Note: The time and temperature icon below is a link to a Boston weather site.
Joe DeBassio, Webmaster
Website Note II: The honey-comb icon is also a link. It takes the clicker to an archive of all the past news pages so that you can read the news pages for the whole year (2004). The less-than link (<) next to the honeycomb icon will take you to the last issue of the newspage.
