WESTFORD — A local men’s USTA tennis team is headed to Florida in the fall to compete against 17 other sectional-winning teams from around the U.S. and the Caribbean to determine the 55-and-over U.S. champion.
The team out of WestFit Swim and Tennis Club in Westford is comprised of eight local men and they will be traveling to the newly-constructed USTA Center in the Lake Nona region of Orlando where they will play two matches on Friday, Oct. 26, and two on Saturday, Oct. 27, in hopes of winning their bracket to play for the championship on Sunday .
“We all are avid tennis players in and around Merrimack Valley,” said the team’s captain, Bob Nelson.
“Some of us play out of Westford at the Westford Tennis Club, some play out of Trull Brook Tennis Club in Tewksbury, and various other places in and around the area. We play in various leagues together socially and competitively.”
The team is as follows: Bob Nelson (Dunstable, team captain), Scott Ellis (Tyngsboro), Peter Kraus (Tyngsboro), Mike Arsenault (Tewksbury), Bob Barker (Andover), Roland Gingras (Pepperell), Bob McHugh (Chelmsford), and Carlton SooHoo (North Billerica).
Nelson was the one who got this team together and got this whole ride in motion. “I pulled together this team specifically for the USTA competitive season,” he said.
“USTA is a competitive league that starts up in May. Our team is in a section where the minimum age is 55 in order to play and you have to be rated a certain playing level to be on the team.”
Nelson’s team is a 7.0 team, which he explains in further detail: “It’s sort of like a golf handicap, we are a 55-plus 7.0 team which means you have to be older than 55 and your combined ratings cannot exceed 7.0,” he said.
The team is safely heading to Florida in October now, but their regular season and qualifying process was not always so smooth.
“We had three teams in our section for the regular season. It was Westford and then two Bass River teams,” Nelson said.
“We had a total of six matches during the regular season and the team with the best record after those six matches head-to-head with the other two teams then competes in the New England sectional, which is the winning team from various sections from Eastern Mass., Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Western Mass.”
It was that sectional tournament where things got a little bit dicey for the team, but they ultimately were able to prevail. “We squeaked by with the closest margins you can imagine,” said Nelson.
“It was on a tiebreaker level against one of the Bass River teams that allowed us to win the regular season to go on to sections. At sections, we lost out first match, we won the next two, then we got to the finals at that sectional tournament by the thinnest margin,” Nelson said.
Despite the drama, the team is heading to Florida and they could not be more excited. “It’s like the ultimate tennis vacation,” Nelson said. “We get to go on vacation, play tennis, and have it matter.”
