Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2009

To this team, contests are a racquet

Almost 200 fans showed up at the North Hills Racquet Club to watch a group of local tennis players compete in an exhibition match on a cold night Nov. 6, and it might as well have been a new tournament in the international Grand Slam series.

At least it felt that way to a local team that came in third at the U.S. Tennis Association League's 10.0 Mixed Doubles National Championship in Las Vegas last weekend.

"I was nervous," Liz Simon confessed. "These were people we teach, and I have never played in front of that many people before."

Simon, 29, and several of her teammates are teaching pros at the Seven Oaks and North Hills Racquet clubs.

These two clubs and the Raleigh Tennis Association sponsored the exhibition fundraiser to help pay for the team's travel to the nationals.

On the courts

Simon and team captain Katrina Barnes, 29, have been playing tennis since childhood. They played in college and had competed in large tournaments, but they had never played before such a large crowd.

Their mixed-doubles team won a city tournament last summer and advanced to the USTA Southern Section Championships Oct. 16-18 in Jackson, Miss., where they beat a team from Tennessee to advance to the national championship.

The local team lost in the semifinal round Sunday to the Mid-Atlantic regional championship team from Maryland. The Pacific Northwest team, from Oregon, won the national championship.

Simon, who played with her doubles partner, Stefan Kadir, grew up on Ohio. She played tennis at James Madison University and moved to the Triangle seven years ago.

After spending a year working for the Durham Bulls, she decided she missed tennis and took a job as a teaching pro at North Hills.

"I have been playing tennis since I was 5 years old," she said.

Barnes says she can't remember a time when she did not play tennis and reckons she has been playing as long as she could hold a racquet. The Durham native played for N.C. State University and also teaches at North Hills.

Captain and mother

Barnes doubles as team captain and den mother.

"I became captain of the team because no one else wanted do it," she joked.

As captain she keeps her team organized. At the championship, she made sure her teammates understood the tournament requirements and kept up with the onsite logistics and scores.

Barnes paired up with her big brother, Fritz Gildemeister, 33, as her doubles partner. "We get along good," she said. "We don't fight."

Simon chimed in: "They're a funny pair to watch. They can play jokes on each other without getting mad."

Kadir, 29, started playing tennis as a kid in Indonesia and found his way to Raleigh when he enrolled in Strayer University, majoring in International Business.

His teammate and girlfriend, Myrna Bawono, 28, played for N.C. State and is part of this team of championship hopefuls.

The sixth member of the team is Jon Davis, 27.

The USTA has a rating system, which ensures that players compete against others on the same playing level. Ratings range from 2.5 to 7.0. Only world-class professional players achieve the 7.0 rating. The local players say they know of no players in this area with a rating higher than a 6.0.

This 10.0 squad plays at the highest amateur level, with individual ratings of 5.0.

A mixed doubles 10.0 combo team is made up of male and female doubles partners whose combined individual USTA rating equals 10.0.

Building a local 10.0 team and practicing for this tournament has proven to be challenging.

A high level of play

Not only do they spend most of their time teaching tennis players of all ages and abilities, but there are not many local athletes who play at such a high level.

"There are plusses and minuses to being a teaching pro," Simon said. "Teaching keeps us hitting the ball, but the consistency of playing tough tennis is not always there."

This is Kadir's third trip to the nationals, after Puerto Rico in 2006 and Orlando in 2007. He hopes his third time will be a charm.