2014 saw the return of one of Tuxedo’s annual Racquets events: the Hadden Tomes (HT) Invitational. The 2014 HT committee introduced a Rackets portion to the festivities, which proved to be very successful.
The 2014 HT had 46 players competing in Court Tennis and 12 players competing in Rackets. The format for the Court Tennis was HCP’d doubles throughout the Round Robin stages with different partners each round. The Rackets format was HCP’d singles throughout.
Friday, October 24th had play kick off at 12 noon with newly appointed Tuxedo Racquets Committee Co-Chair Josh Scherer and Prince’s Court representative Dara Walsh taking on Tuxedo’s Doug Ewing and NY R&T’s Arthur Whitcomb. 18 matches were played on the 24th with play finishing up just after midnight; all matches were a total of 12 games with the largest HCP difference on the 24th being REC 15. Day two kicked off at 8 AM with 17 more matches on the Court Tennis agenda along with numerous Rackets battles. Play was schedule to be completed at 7PM in order for the participants to enjoy an authentic ‘Oktoberfest’ experience under the tent at the Tennis House.
Saturday evening featured the much anticipated Oktoberfest party featuring authentic Bavarian food and beer (and a fair amount of Jagermeister) along with a live Polka band. The vast majority of 100+ party-goers helped complete the authentic experience by showing up to spectate in their dirndls and lederhosen. Early evening photos provided below, including the last match of the day, which featured Rich Mueller in “Oktoberfest-style” tennis whites.
Sunday morning the 26th of October brought a number of bleary eyes and a few players still in dirndls and lederhosen along with qualifying players in the Spaten, Franziskaner and Hofbrau Court Tennis Finals and the Inaugural Hadden Tomes Handicapped Rackets Final.
The first final of the day was the Inaugural Hadden Tomes Handicapped Singles Rackets. Tuxedo’s Josh Scherer versus R&T’s Peter Cipriano. Scherer emerged from his half of the Rackets draw with a well-played semi-final victory of pre-tournament favorite Zach Sacks; while Cipriano only having a slight HCP advantage over Peter Pell in the other semi-final won a nail-biter of a first game and then pulled away a bit in the second to take the victory. The final was a very entertaining match with Cipriano exhibiting his fantastic movement and retrieval skills and Scherer showing the crowd that he will be a force to be reckoned with in the future with his economy of movement and strong serving…and more tournament experience for both players will showcase their bright futures in Rackets.
The Spaten Final saw Arthur Drane and Sara Luby take on Kevin Shea and Chris Bruner. In a back and forth match with numerous shots well below the online handicaps of all players on court….Shea and Bruner prevailed in a crowd pleasing 6-3 2-6 6-4 victory.
Next on the schedule was the Hofbrau Final…with two Tuxedo stalwarts on opposite sides of the net. Charles DeCasteja and Rich Moroscak versus Joe Capella and Peter Cipriano. In a thoroughly entertaining match with heavy forcing, fantastic gets and some strong serving at key points…Capella and Cipriano inched across the finish line with a well-earned 6-3 6-4 victory.
And in the final match of the 2014 Hadden Tomes; the Franziskaner Final pitted the Tuxedo team of Chris Heffernan and Rich Mueller against Dan Villiers and Craig Corrance. The experience of playing together and local court knowledge may have been the deciding factor and Mueller and Heffernan emerged victorious 6-4 6-1.
A BIG THANK YOU to all the participants in the 2014 Hadden Tomes; with special THANKS to tournament Co-Chairs McCartney Wilkins, Josh Scherer and Guy Devereux as well Tuxedo’s Head Pro, Tim Chisholm.
