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Eight local women tennis players from the Toledo Area Interclub League (TAIL) competed at the USTA Midwest Ohio State Championships August 14-15 in Cincinnati.
The women qualified as an independent team for the two-day event in the 3.0 adult division. It was the first time any of the local women had competed at the Ohio State Championships.
The team co-captains were Laurie Mahler of Oregon and Jennifer Gochenour Renshaw of Lambertville, Mich. The local team members' ages ranged from “18 to 55-plus,” according to Mahler.
“The core group was started by Dewey Caldwell years ago out at Clay, and we would play on Tuesday nights,” she said. “He would teach us and we would do drills and he would match us. At the end of the summer we would scrimmage the Clay girls. After Dewey passed (two years ago), we kept our women’s group and Dewey's wife, Janet, runs it.”
Walt Ralph, the girls’ tennis coach at Clay, helped get the women involved in TAIL.
“They play against other women's teams that were formed throughout the Toledo area,” Ralph said. “There's a ladies tennis club that had been operating in this area for several years that was organized by Dewey. He was a big supporter of tennis before he passed away. He and I worked together quite a bit with my girls at the high school and his adult ladies program. We would do scrimmages and we worked together a lot. When he fell ill, he asked that I do what I could to make sure the ladies kept at it.
“The first spring I helped with some of the ladies' drills and sent some of my players over to practice
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Eight local women tennis players from the Toledo
Area Interclub League (TAIL) recently competed
at the USTA Midwest Ohio State Championships
August 14-15 in Cincinnati. Bottom row — left to
right: Suzanne Brewer, Brenda Kozlowski, Brenda
Zachel, Heather Klatt, Becky Noethen. Middle row
Mary Ralph, Becky Croke, Mary Sue Van Dyke, Sarah
Gale, Debi Meldrum. Top row — Terry Mays, Donna
Stover, Jennifer Gochenour Renshaw, Laurie Mahler,
Coach Walt Ralph. Teammates missing from picture:
Jill Bandy, Lindsay Durrant, and Nicole Laberdee. |
with them. I had the idea this spring to take it a step further and get them involved in the (TAIL) league. They played official matches on Monday nights and we had our home matches at Clay. The league is set up where you play away half the time throughout the Toledo area at various tennis clubs.”
Joining Mahler and Renshaw on this year's local team were Oregon residents Lindsay Durrant, Sarah Gale, Heather Klatt, Nicole Laberdee, Terry Mays, Rebecca Noethen, Mary Sue Van Dyke and Brenda Zachel; Brenda Kozlowski and Donna Stover of Northwood; Suzanne Brewer and Debi Meldrum of Curtice; Mary Ralph of Toledo; Jill Bandy of Perrysburg and Becky Croke of Sylvania.
“Walt put this team together,” Mahler said. “He sent out an e-mail asking if we wanted to have a team join the TAIL league. We lost our first match and we got back on track. We finished 8-2 with 32 individual wins and we ended up winning the league.”
The TAIL featured 11 area teams, with schedules drawn up by the USTA, according to Walt Ralph.
“We finished first in the league and that qualified us to advance to the Northwest Division district tournament at Jermaine Park,” he said. “There are three 3.0 divisions throughout the Toledo area and probably 30 USTA 3.0 division women's teams that played this summer. We won our division and played a playoff against the first-place teams from the other two divisions, and we won that tournament.”
That district tourney win enabled the local women to advance to the state tournament at Queen City Racquet Club in Cincinnati.
“We took 10 members - eight played in a match and we took two alternates,” Mahler said. “We use three doubles teams and three singles players. The first day was a little overwhelming and we got beat pretty bad (4-1). We came back on Sunday and lost 3-2 to a team from Cincinnati. There was a lot of very good competition.”
Noethen and Van Dyke won their No. 2 doubles match on Saturday and then lost to a team from Cleveland on Sunday.
Mahler and Mays teamed to win their doubles match, 6-3, 6-0, on Sunday. Zachel also earned a win in her singles match. Mary Ralph, Gale and Renshaw also played matches at the USTA event.
“They all did a good job of competing,” Walt Ralph said. “They definitely showed they belong in that mix. It's tough to go and play at that level without some big-time match experience under their belt. They're a fun group.”
Pic-TennisPicture1
Eight local women tennis players from the Toledo Area Interclub League (TAIL) recently competed at the USTA Midwest Ohio State Championships August 14-15 in Cincinnati. Bottom row — left to right: Suzanne Brewer, Brenda Kozlowski, Brenda Zachel, Heather Klatt, Becky Noethen. Middle row — Mary Ralph, Becky Croke, Mary Sue Van Dyke, Sarah Gale, Debi Meldrum. Top row — Terry Mays, Donna Stover, Jennifer Gochenour Renshaw, Laurie Mahler, Coach Walt Ralph. Teammates missing from picture: Jill Bandy, Lindsay Durrant, and Nicole Laberdee.
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