It was a fabulous pre-July 4th tournament weekend in which we had a full turnout of 80 players in the Sunnyvale Tennis Club Doubles Championships.

We had the most divisions ever offered in one tournament, Mixed 6.0, 7.0, 8.0,
Mens 7.0, 8.0 and Womens 6.0 and 7.0.
The Mountain View and Cupertino Tennis clubs were invited to the tournament and contributed
representatives of several USTA teams - Rengstorff’s M3.5 Killer Squirrels(3), Sunnyvale’s
M3.5 Sleeping/Deflated Giants(2), Cuesta’s playoff bound, M4.0 Crushers(2) on the men’s side
and for the women, Cuesta’s W3.5 Dropshot Divas(4) , Cupertino’s W3.0 The Radiant (2) and
Sunnyvale’s W3.0 Dream Girls (4).

Our tournament co-chair Carrie Bell and referee Philip Stromer played Caroline and Alain Reynaud in the Mx8.0 finals, where they won in a long three setter 6-4,3-6,7-6. Lori Cruz-Spray and Steve Spray prevailed over Sunnyvale’s Coach Rick Newman and Lindawati Santoso in the Mx8.0 consolation finals.
The Mens 8.0 was a round robin where the team of Michael C. Lee and Michael Lin won by defeating both their opponents. Howard Giles/Dean Nguyen (Cuesta Crushers) finished second and like all finalists, brought home the prize of a Sunnyvale Tennis Club sweatshirt.

Sleeping/Deflated Giants Rohit Behl and Kedar Patil won in the Mens 7.0 finals against Killer
Squirrels Jeff Boeker and Harold Habeck. Last year, Rohit won the M6.0 division. This year the
M7.0 division was the largest event with 16 players participating. Gary Calhoun and Joseph
Poppo survived the consolation draw with a finals win over Subhachandra Chandra and Max
Wirjo.

In the Womens 7.0 finals, Cupertino’s Dropshot Divas Snyeska Bendis and Laurie Roy
defeated Dianne Alexander and Carin Taylor of Sunnyvale’s Ali’s Aces.

In the Mixed 7.0 division, the husband/wife team of Bettye Pham-Vo/Ha Vo defeated the mother/ son team of Suzanne Tiendas/Marcus Montoya.

In the Mixed 7.0 consolation round, Cecilia Liu and Lei Xue defeated Texan newcomer Peggy
Keep and long time STC member, Bill Schein. Peggy had arrived from Texas only the day before the tournament. Cecilia played in two finals on Sunday as she also won the W7.0 consolation finals with partner May Mu over Anne Neeter and Kweiping Wong. All consolation finalists earned colorful, embroidered Sunnyvale Tennis Club towels for their efforts.

#1 Seeds, Virginia Sorenson and Emi Kawamoto outlasted Irena Chernyak/ Eva Low
in the W6.0 finals. In the Mixed 6.0 finals, Sridevi Parise and Naval Verma defeated Divina Christopher and Mike Kenneavy. Lucky alternates Divina and Mike were walking by and gained entry into the tournament when another team didn’t show up. Talk about being at the right place at the right time. This was both Irena’s and Mike’s first tournament!

Daisy Poon and Alan Rupp reached the Mixed 6.0 consolation finals and defeated the energetic
Linda Chan and Raymond Yan. Linda played in both the W6.0 and Mixed 6.0 events.

Many thanks to everyone who participated and all the volunteers who gave their time and energy to help make the tournament run smoothly. Betty Seto and Dianne Alexander helped with the daily set-up. Teresa Low, Liz Kung and Patricia Perry handled the players at the check-in desk. Karen Kenton assisted with photography. Billye Kay Wells brought the two tubs of ice cream exactly at noon on Saturday! And Michael Lin and Michael Lee stood in the hot sun acting as linesmen for one of the finals.

-Carrie, Philip and Roger

To see pictures: go to photogallery
or go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/sunnyvaletennisclub