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Despite some grumbling about Tennis Link, the NTRP season ended with a solid bang, not a whimper, as 256 players, the cream of the 2002 tournament season, eagerly converged for the Grand Prix playoffs on the tree-studded Mission Hills Tennis Club site in Fremont. The bucolic spot was a switch from longtime host, the Livermore Valley Tennis Club.
The players received complimentary emblazoned sweat shirts to document their achievement and were treated to a dinner banquet on the first Saturday night of the two weekend playoffs at the Radisson Hotel in Fremont. The switch from Sunday, last year, was the players' choice. This year 166 attended, Barnette said, compared with 120 in 2001. Also, the matches ran on time, with only a few stretching into three hours. And every match had that official touch of class-an umpire in the chair. "One player told me he was so glad for the umpire, so he didn't have to think about the lines at all," Barnette said. "Great, relax and play." Computer technology was both a boon and a bane. In the past, NorCal laboriously mailed invitational letters to the top 15 NTRP players, then waited for telephoned responses from those who wanted to play. Now the system is on-line and fast at the NorCal website, and emails are the handy communication of choice. Even so, the space between the last tournament result and the making of the draws (about 10 days) and the tournament two weeks later amount to a rush job, according to Barnette, even if things go smoothly. "At one point, the emails became overwhelming and just non-stop," Barnette said. "Tennis Link was a bottle neck. People said they couldn't get a confirmation (for the Grand Prix). And it was exhausting working that stuff out. I was out of town for three days and came back and had 118 emails! I almost fainted." Tennis Link, the sometimes-erratic system that allows players to enter tournaments on line, is great when it works, frustrating when it doesn't. In this case, panic hit. "Some even entered the (Grand Prix) tournament before they knew they qualified," Barnette said. "I think we ought to put like a month between the last tournament and the invitations." This year's event corralled the top eight in the majority of its categories, she said. A format exception is the 3.0s, where matches are characterized by slo-mo, moonball marathons. Only four are invited. Overall participation in NTRP singles tournaments in 2002 was 3,850, down from 4,167 a year ago, and doubles entries were similarly off, 4,008 compared with 4,250 in 2001. The Grand Prix lost a couple of categories for lack of interest, and total participation was down from the 320 estimated last year. Barnette, who took over the NTRP committee chairmanship in 2002 from Steve Brandt, ventured a guess as to why the declines. "I hear from the players, and they say that if draws are small, then a tournament should limit play to one weekend and not spread it over two. How tournaments are run is another factor. And also, when you have tournaments on weekends, and league matches played at the same time, sometimes leagues get priority because people have a chance to go to the nationals. Joyce (Pournaras, former Director of Adult Leagues) said that. And she made me a believer." Grand Prix tournament results are available on the USTA NorCal website. |
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The 2003 Adult Schedule and the Junior Handbook can be purchased from our office for $5.00 ($4.00 walk-in). |
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Broke and can't go? Travel Assistance Grants of up to $500 per person per year are available for those who would be unable to participate in an event outside the Northern California section without financial assistance. Contact Aliza Avalos for application procedure at (510) 748-7373, ext. 2985. |
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Good Sport! Please send us examples you have seen on court in tournament or league play so we can share them in future NorCal Call issues. Carter@norcal.usta.com |
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"Gavin Russo (manager) and Dan Miller (club pro) were so happy for it to be here," said tournament director Karla Barnette, (right, A previous Grand Prix participant in the 5.0s, was on the other side of the tournament desk in 2002.) who is chair of the NTRP Committee. "They were helpful and nice and opened the club to us all. And I thought the setting was more centrally located to where the majority of players are."
