District Match #1 Review

PATD 4.0 Men’s Districts Review – Match 1, Great Valley vs. Pirates, 8:30AM Saturday July 18th

It’s never easy to figure out which squad is going to be the “toughest” match-up when it comes to District playoffs. After all, your team has to be pretty good to survive the gauntlet that is the regular season. One thing we did know about the Pirates, however, was that their top 2 singles players were supposed to be so good that their final regular season opponent defaulted the entire match as a team protest against guys that they felt were underrated. Not only did Lakeside default the match, it was a match that could have decided a berth in Districts!

Knowing that, Capt. Mike flip-flopped the lineup a few times, considering the possibility of loading up doubles by teaming Brett and I together…but eventually decided to play things straight up. Things seemed a little dicey – but thanks to fantastic performances by our 3 doubles pairings, Great Valley managed to pull out the win and start the weekend 1-0.

1st Singles – Greg Heck v. Kent Lane, 6-4, 2-6, 0-1
Kent had a phenomenal season in 2009. In his first 3 singles matches, he lost no more than 5 games each match. After a straight set doubles win, he had a couple of 3-set wins where he lost the first set and then won the next two sets pretty easily. Hmmm…overall he was 5-0 in singles, 1-0 in doubles and 1 win by default. I was also riding a perfect season into Districts, albeit mostly in doubles, primarily with Rich Trach. Rich and I went 6-0 – I also added a doubles win with Holger, and 2 singles wins. So either Kent or I were going to taste defeat for the first time on this beautiful July morning.
During the first set, I managed to stay aggressive and take advantage of Kent’s struggling serve. He had trouble finding any consistency, and I felt good about stealing the first. In the second, we played a marathon 5th game at 2-all. I blew several chances to break serve and put myself in position to win the match…and then my game just caved in. Kent started serving better and was pounding his forehand all over the court, keeping me well behind the baseline. I don’t find myself well behind the baseline very often, and I didn’t handle it well. I didn’t put up much of a fight in the tiebreak and left the court with a disappointing loss. Fortunately the rest of the team picked me up…

2nd Singles – Brett Seigfried v. Donald Swantko, 6-7, 2-6
I’m guessing that Donald is the reason that Lakeside chose to default their match with the Pirates to send a message to Sally Baird. Donald played varsity tennis at Millersville University this season as a freshman, and was named All-PSAC by the conference coaches. Interestingly, he was only 1-1 in singles in the 4.0 regular season, with both matches going 3 sets, not including his default win. He also played 4 doubles matches at 4.5, winning 2 and losing 2. He squared off against Brett, who was 8-0 in 4.0 singles play this year between the PATD and CPTD. I was lucky enough to be playing right next to these guys, and they were absolutely blasting the ball back and forth. Donald jumped to an early lead, but Brett fought back to take a lead before they reached the first set tiebreak. Swantko held Brett off, stole the momentum and swiftly took the second set 6-2. Of course, I say swiftly, but my 3-set match was over well before these guys were done…they were playing some long points! Brett’s was the last match complete, and he was so sure that we had lost that he was wishing his opponent good luck at Sectionals. Silly Brett…

1st Doubles – Werkiser/Van Alstine d. Ganley/Grodecki, 6-1, 2-6, 1-0
We flipped our doubles pairings, putting our “weakest” team at 1st and our “best” team at 3rd. Well, the Pirates did the same thing. I didn’t see any of this match (or any of the doubles matches, for that matter) so I’ll tell you about the records, but I don’t have much else to add. Except to note that our boys were down 9-8 in the super-tiebreak…and no matter what happened the rest of the weekend, our fate could have been decided right there – and Kenny and Guy turned it around and took the match.
Jim Ganley plays a lot of USTA league tennis. This tennis season alone, he is 8-2 in Senior Mixed Doubles (one of his losses was to GV team member Tom Mead), 2-0 in Senior 4.0 Doubles (one win by default), 2-3 for the Pirates in 4.0 play, 4-3 in various Mixed Doubles levels, and 5-0 in Tri-Level doubles as a 4.0. Phew. That’s a lot of tennis. I wonder if he goes to practice, too? Notably, only one of his matches came with his partner for this match, a 3-set win back in early May. Wlodzimierz Grodecki is not nearly as prolific – though also a Seniors players, he’s played only 1 seniors doubles match (a loss) to go along with his 4-0 doubles record for the Pirates, one of which was by default. Ganley and Grodecki were unable to best our Super-Seniors, as Kenny improved his 2-1 season record and Guy posted his first victory after 3 season losses. Couldn’t have come at a better time!!!

2nd Doubles – Mackenthun/Virgulti d. Remillard/Siggs, 3-6, 6-3, 1-0
With all of the consternation surrounding our personnel losses (Schmidt, Gionta, Mead, Edson, et al), it was kind of easy to forget that we were adding a huge piece – Joe Virgulti. Talk about your wild cards…Joe had played a grand total of 4 league matches over the past 2 seasons due to injuries. And this year, he and Jim Dare double-bageled two patsies from Healthplex that thought they coming out for a badminton match, and Joe was credited with 2 default victories. That’s it. He was to be paired with Holger Mackenthun for the weekend, and who better to be matched with? All Holger has done all year is win, with about 26 different partners. So what would happen? Well, after figuring each other out for the first set, Joe and Holger got the job done in an easy 3rd set super-tiebreak.
Their opponents – Dan Remillard didn’t play a whole lot this season, going 2-1 in doubles for the 4.0 year, not including the last match default. And he had never played with his partner on this day, Ronald Siggs – Siggs was 3-2 in the 4.0 regular season, with mixed records in other pursuits such as Senior 4.0 Doubles, Mixed Doubles and Senior Mixed Doubles. In the end, Remillard and Siggs we’re enough on this day.

3rd Doubles – Trach/Umbach d. Ryle/Munoz, 6-4, 6-2
What more can you say about these guys? Trach and Umbach reprised their dominant 2008 performance for these District playoffs, and were untouchable once again. Rich Trach has had a phenomenal season – 9-0 in the 4.0 regular season, 3-0 thus far in his 4.0 Senior season…and 3-0 at Districts. Rich, do you remember what it’s like to lose a match? Hopefully, you won’t remember at Princeton…meanwhile, Dave Umbach has only one blemish on his 2009 record, and that was the infamous 1st singles match against 4.0 computer rated wunderkind Cameron O’Donnell of Easy Killer. After winning all 3 of their District matches in the 3rd set super-tiebreak in 2008, Rich and Dave decided to just take care of business in 2 sets this year. Helps keep the blood pressure a little lower, you know?
Their opponents played together all season, to a 4-1 record. Munoz played an additional two matches with Wlodzimierz Grodecki, and won them both. They were clearly outclassed by Rich and Dave, however…but won their other two District matches in straight sets. The lesson – don’t mess with Rich and Dave.

Hopefully, I’ll have the other two match reviews over the next few days. Be patient! It’s four and a half weeks to Princeton!