Observer Challenge tennis tournament players praise new format

With a shift in the format of the Observer Challenge tennis tournament on its 25th anniversary, all that mattered was who could get to six points first.

A few teams took early leads, but as Saturday afternoon wound down, several teams were in tight races to the finish. Walking down the series of courts, viewers could see more than one scoreboard with a set score of 5-4.

But eventually, the winners rose to the top, with the results as follows.

Results

In the first division, the top title went to the four-person team of Troy Lowrie, Steve Schwartz, Felice Marcus and Pam Mogul. The runners up were Tom Ramsey, Audra Ramsey, Jim Diao and Sue Campbell.

The division two winners were Mike Langlois, Irene Langlois, Dobs Gibbins and Jackie Gibbins. Runners up were Ted Prospect, Lindsey Prospect, Don Zimmerman and Ellen Zimmerman.

For division three, the winners included Michael David, Tom Flannigan, Karen Beaumont and Ann Ruden. Mike Brodie, James Devincenti, Kristy Owens and Laura McLean were runners up.

In the open division, Andre Herke, Alan Amero, Hailey English and Colleen Sims won over Steve Nicolai, Kate Rhodes, Doug Eden and Tatiana Ayeroglu.

Winning the open

Amero said the team showed up bright and very early on Saturday to warm up and prepare for the match, especially considering they had overcast skies and wet court conditions with which to contend earlier in the morning. 

“We stayed very focused,” he said. “We got ahead, and we stayed ahead.”

Herke, who was off the court for the past nine months because of an injury, celebrated their win by having his young son, Thomas, pose for photos with a trophy nearly as tall as himself.

Amero commended his teammate, saying, “He played fantastically.”

He and English played in the mixed matches, and she joked that her teammate wouldn’t play with her any longer if she didn’t step up her game.

“She used to run from the net years ago, and now she’s attacking it,” he said.

Amero said one of the most fundamental yet hardest parts of the game is keeping the ball in the court, which he said was one of the main contributors to their success this year.

Format approval

The most significant change to the format was eliminating singles matches. Rather, the matches started with women’s and men’s teams playing one another, then pitting the winners against one another in mixed matches.

Participants broadly voiced their approval of the change, saying it made the tournament less taxing, more entertaining and provided more opportunities to socialize.

Laura McLean and Kristy Owens competed against Karen Beaumont and Ann Ruden in the women’s bracket, and for all but Owens, it was their first time competing the the Observer Challenge. They all agreed this was a fantastic opportunity to meet fellow community members, especially those in other tennis clubs.

Thayer, who received recognition for managing the tournament for the past 25 years, said she was pleased with the response to the changes and plans to return to organize it again next year.