This year’s event was played at the Birmingham Racquet Club July 18-20 and featured over 110 players ranging from local cities such as Bloomfield Hills, Troy and West Bloomfield to the outskirts of Detroit — the Palmer Park Program, Grosse Ile, Gaylord and East Lansing; to other states such as Massachusetts and New York along with our friends from Mississaga & LaSalle, Canada.

The Green Dot Tournament had separate girls’ and boys’ divisions and played throughout the weekend with the Boy’s Division having Patrick Tiwari of Troy coming out on top with a win against Wyatt Snyder of La Salle, Ontario, 6-3, 6-3.  The Girls’ Division finished with Laynie Thompson of Clawson on top with a final score of 6-2, 6-4 against finalist Grace Shaya of West Bloomfield.

The Orange and Red Ball tournaments for the first time this year were made an “earned advancement level tournament”; meaning players were given points for participating and both divisions played early round, round robin formats, leading into tournament-style finishes having a winner for the first time in both divisions. Orange ball had separate boys’ and girls’ divisions both of which played round robin matches on Saturday with 4 boys and 4 girls returning Sunday morning for the finals.  Michael Liss of Bloomfield won the Boys Orange Ball while Andrea Fulmer of Grosse Ile won the Girls’ Orange Ball.  The 8 and under Red Ball players are co-ed and they played 2 hours of round robin play finishing up with 4 finalists, 2 boys and 2 girls; with Stasia Kryk of Windsor, Ontario beating out Luca Marciano of Grosse Pointe Farms for the Red Ball Championships!

Another new aspect this year was the Saturday night exhibition match between former top 10 touring professionals, Aaron Krickstein and Jimmy Arias.  The exhibition was played at the Bloomfield Open Hunt Club on their stadium court.  Over 300 people turned out for the festivities and all children who competed in the SLK tournament received free tickets for themselves and their parents to watch the exhibition. There was great support not only from tournament participants, but from the local tennis community who came out to watch two top players compete in support of a great cause!

A big THANK YOU to all the volunteers and parent support received throughout the weekend of tournament play.  Special thanks to the Bloomfield Open Hunt Club for the use of their beautiful facility for the exhibition, the Birmingham Racquet Club for their facility which hosted the tournament play, to Lenora King from Palmer Park who helped gather some kids from her program; Mike Graff who ran the Green dot portion; while Dawn Fallu ran the Red and Orange Ball portions.   And of course Keith King, Courtney King and Julie King for creating and growing such a special event for kids.

The Dearborn Community Tennis Association (DCTA) in conjunction with the Southeastern Michigan Tennis Association (SEMTA) and the Midwest section of the USTA brought a USTA Schools In-Service Physical Education Training to 24 Dearborn Public School elementary P.E. teachers. The program was put together in early September and was a big success, with leader Mike Andrews being very dynamic, stated DPS lead administrator Abe Mashhour. DCTA Executive Director Steve Behmlander kicked off the program which was led by Mike Andrews from Fort Wayne, Indiana. Mike represents the USTA Midwest section at various school training sessions and serves on the Midwest Youth Tennis committee. The goal is to bring tennis into the fabric of the districts curriculum during school and follow it up with an after school program or a lunch time program at all of the 22 elementary schools in the Dearborn. The DCTA is also working with DPS to refresh their equipment at the schools. This was the third in-service done for the Dearborn Public Schools through the DCTA in the last 5 years.

10 and under tennis was alive and well this weekend at the Birmingham Athletic Club with 140 children participating in 8 and under red ball, 10 and under orange ball, and 10 and under green dot ball events.  The Scott L. King Serving Aces for Sarcoma Tournament was a fabulous example of how the USTA’s 10 and under initiatives have blossomed in the SEMTA (Southeastern Michigan Tennis Association) district. Tournament Director Jeff Stassen said he was “in awe of the energy at the BAC over the weekend surrounding the event.  We had two groups of players from the City of Detroit in Palmer and Clark Park, along with a group from Toronto.  It was just an incredible turnout and our volunteers and staff did a fantastic job.”

The tournament was started 5 years ago to honor the late Scott King who was a BAC member and great ambassador to tennis.  Through the support of his family and friends, the event has grown to be one of the largest in the country.  It should be noted that this was the first year a satellite event was offered on the same weekend in Ann Arbor at Travis Pointe Country Club.

As Wimbledon wraps up this week, many die-hard tennis fans will be tuned in to the women’s and men’s finals over the July 4^th holiday weekend. There is something about watching those final matches on that pristine grass of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club that fires up the player in all of us.  As a kid, I was let down after Wimbledon ended because there just wasn’t much tennis on TV until the US Open in late August.

But with the US Open Series that was formed a few years ago, more hard court events that lead up to the US Open are televised. You can catch plenty of the match play on the Tennis Channel, ESPN 2 and the WatchESPN app which is available for mobile devices. Check out this link for the 2013 US Open Series TV schedule and tune into more tennis!

http://www.emiratesusopenseries.com/TVSchedule/?intloc=headernav

Royal Oak resident Ralph Colone, 64, has played tennis for two decades. But it’s only in the past two years that the sport has truly sent his heart into a flutter. That’s when Colone first heard of cardio tennis, a growing fitness trend. More than a million people have tried it, said Michele Krause, the national cardio tennis manager for the Tennis Industry Association. Cardio tennis is just what it sounds like — a cardio workout on the tennis court, complete with pulsating music, warm-ups and cool-downs, and an absence of line judges or confusing score-keeping.