By Trevor Kronemann
Team, Innovation and Sportsmanship are on full display for the next couple of months.
The Junior Tennis Players of Southern California have been competing in several Team and Innovative formats; the Level I Jim Buck Team event, the JTT National Championships, the 10 and Under Pacific Exchange, the Girls CIF Team Season, and the Fall Season for JTT are all in full swing here in Southern California.
The Jim Buck Team Championships took place at four sites through-out Orange County and culminated in the Final Day being held at Racquet Club of Irvine on Labor Day. 16 Teams made up of 4 Girls and 4 Boys that squared off in round robin play on the first two days with the winner of each site moving on to the semi-finals and finals. Each match consisted of 12 Total Points that included 8 from singles and 4 more from doubles; the players played each form of doubles in the Round Robin and then choose by flip of the coin which to play in the semis and finals (either gender doubles or mixed doubles). If the match was tied at the end of singles and doubles; a ten point tie-break was played in the doubles that was not picked for the match by the captains. Individual ranking points were given based on the finish of the TEAM, not based on your personal finish from match to match. The winning TEAM was Nathan Caoile, Diego Huttepain, Tuyet Nhi Huynh, Camille Kiss, Phillip Lan, Courtney Swift, Alan Ton, and Cindy Ung. The Sportsmanship Winners were Alan Ton and Lindsey Hung.
The initiatives that we have been working hard on were also well represented in the trip to Stockton, California for the 10 and Under Pacific Exchange where the section competed against Hawaii, Northern California, Southwest, Intermountain, and the Pacific Northwest. 4 Boy and 4 Girls participants from each section were selected to play in the three day event that included a short set to 4 of singles in both genders, 2 doubles short sets in both genders and short set of 4 mixed doubles with each game counting towards the overall total of the team’s efforts. As it so often does in these events; it came down to one game where Southern California edged Northern California by 1 game (298-297). Youth Progression (green dot event), Team (So Cal 10 and under), Innovation (Scoring and Short Sets) and Sportsmanship (Winner selected at the end of every match, as well as a winner for entire event both boy and girl). The team not only came away with a Victory, but Margaret Hui was selected as the Girl’s Overall Sportsmanship Winner. The Team members were: Kai Beeler, Gray Kelly, Roshan Santhosh, Devin Eisman, Amy Lee, Margaret Hui, Iva Jovic, and Kenzie Nguyen.
In a couple weeks the TEAM aspect of our schedule will continue to roll on as we host the 115th Jim Hillman Doubles Championships and a Team competition called the Pacific Cup in Portland, Oregon in early December. The current leaders of the Bryan Twins Doubles Race heading into Doubles Sectionals are:
B18’s Bullard/Pulliam G18’s Dush/Kuo B16’s Papa/Smith G16’s Hayer/Chan
B14’s Thai/Kats G14’s Ung/Audelo B12’s Lynch/Lynch G12’s Shalaev/Radulescu
B10’s Joshi/Brunklow G10’s Ahn/Lee