Net News, Volume 10
2/25/2022 9:19:00 AM | Men's Tennis
Hello from our state's capital – Montgomery, Alabama!
Last weekend the team had their only consecutive days off from competition and training this semester. Some caught up on sleep, others on studies, several phone calls home were made, movies watched, and quite simply, some quality time off court. The coaches and support staff did the same (unfortunately not our incredible athletic trainer Katie Wheeler who worked the women's matches) and took in some gardening and family meals (me), mountain biking (Dimitar Kutrovsky) and continued home improvements (Ezequiel Gils). The season is a long one and it's important to come up for air from time to time because once the freight train leaves the station, there's no turning back. The next phase of competition is now upon us as we move outdoors for the duration of the spring. Our next competition takes place just a couple hours south of campus in Montgomery, Alabama. We travel there, along with our women's team, to participate in the 74th playing of the Blue Gray National Tennis Classic. The two-day event is held at Lagoon Park and O'Connor Tennis Center and features 16 total teams – 8 men, 8 women – competing in three dual matches over a 48-hour period (Friday, February 25 & Saturday, February 26). Before I provide more info on the Blue Gray, let me quickly review our trip to the Sooner State a couple of weeks ago.
The soon-to-be-SEC-bound Sooners were first up on Friday night at the impressive Headington Family Tennis Center. The OU fans were plentiful and filled the seats above and in between the six court facility, which is divided with three courts on each side. Loud and ongoing chants of "Boomer! Sooner!" echoed inside the large building, which had one of the highest ceilings I've ever seen…great for lobs! Our guys were well prepared but knew the home squad was not going to give their future conference partners any gifts. Enzo Aguiard and Joao Ferreira put themselves in a position to capture their doubles match as our other two spots were fighting back from early service breaks. Oklahoma did a better job of anticipating and finishing points than we did which pushed them ahead 1-0. Game on.
We jumped out to quick leads in singles and the tide seemed to turn a bit or at least keep the Boomer Sooner chants to a minimum. Filip Planinsek was locked in and captured his first set as fellow freshman, Enzo, jumped ahead a set and service break. It has been nice seeing this pair develop their games and competitive mindsets over the past seven months. They both have had a clear plan in their minds of what to do on court and each has owned the responsibility of responding to success, challenging moments and failure. This has contributed to their place in the singles lineup as well as their continued progress in practice each week. There's not much telling going on when coaching them but rather watching them tell their opponents, teammates and coaches through action and successful execution. For example, Enzo' was broken when he served for the match at 6-5 in the second set which electrified the home crowd. His response was commendable as he blocked out the crowd's roar and finished out his match in a tiebreaker. Calmness + Persistence + Ownership = Confidence & Maturity. Well done Vincenzo! While Filip didn't tally the same result in a tough three-set defeat, his ability to embrace the ebbs and flows of the match, make adjustments when needed and give it his all point after point was constant. Like Enzo, this young Slovenian continued to grow as a competitor. There were other bright spots with our guys – Zach Foster unleashing more powerful serves to set up short ball opportunities and German Samofalov displaying a transition game more than he had ever done prior to coming to Alabama. Oklahoma was stronger overall, however, and snagged the victory which impacted our team, but again taught us some things we needed to keep building on.
Off to Tulsa the following morning to prepare for Sunday's match with the Golden Hurricane. The team met former Alabama player/coach and current Tulsa assistant Andrew Goodwin (class of 2015), who shared a few laughs and stories with all of us. Our hosts had some momentum going their way after defeating Pepperdine and looked to avenge a two-match losing streak to the crimson and white. Following a nice dinner at Napa Flats and a full night's rest, we started our noon affair with Tulsa in fine fashion. Enzo and Joao kicked off the afternoon with a resounding victory on court two while German and Filip were even on court one. Juan Martin and Rudi Christiansen capitalized on their opportunities to break and hold which set up a service game for the doubles point. The Argentinian/German duo served out the match at 5-3 and clinched the 1-0 lead heading into singles.
The crowd was a good one for a Sunday afternoon and the Tulsa faithful cheered on while players banged the glass barrier from up above. The set up was similar to Oklahoma with two sets of three courts on each side of the facility. The scoreboard had technical issues so was not functioning. Old school flip scorecards were used to post the score to onlookers up above but there was no clear way of knowing what was going on other than gauging the volume of the crowd at certain times of the match. I had told the team prior to the start of the match that this was a great opportunity for each player to take responsibility for their court without being distracted by the numbers on the scoreboard (which was blacked out) and focus in on ways to make their opponent as uncomfortable as possible. German was first off as he used effective serves and aggressive returns to set up many points in his favor. Tulsa scored a victory on court five but then Enzo retaliated with an impressive straight set win on court two. While our Australian freshman didn't necessarily play great, he competed extremely well, never letting some early match errors impact his game plan nor his drive to push his team closer to victory. There was one moment in the match when his opponent and the opposing coach argued with the chair umpire over a call. The interruption lasted several minutes, and once play began again, Enzo produced an unforced error which led to a screaming question, "why is there all this chatter?" The shout was more of a question to himself why he allowed the arguing over the call to impact his attention. He gathered himself before the next point and again on the changeover, got back to competing and closed out the match to push our lead to 3-1. Like in the Pepperdine match, Tulsa found itself in a similar situation with a trio of three-setters still on court. Rudi had match points erased on his court and dropped a tough battle while a similar stroke of misfortune happened on Juan's court which evened the score at 3-3. Filip battled on court one and did all he could to erase an early service break in the third. Trailing 3-5, his Golden Hurricane held serve and clinched the match for the home team. What a tough defeat with not much to say but simply feel…gutted.
We had a long flight home that included another delay at DFW (Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport) which allowed us to watch the Super Bowl. We saw the Bama softball team at our gate as they returned from their road trip to Arizona. We had flown out with them on Thursday and would now fly back to Birmingham together. While our trip didn't produce what we wanted, I believe it was something we needed…another challenging moment and opportunity to respond. This young team had done a very good job on Sunday after a not-so-good effort on Friday. Several players made progress and we'd continue to work intently when we returned to practice a couple of days later. Now we shifted our training to the outdoor courts and prepared for the two-day, three-match event known as the Blue Gray National Tennis Classic. For more than seventy years, some of the finest tennis players in the world have come to Montgomery in early spring to do battle. How did this city come to host one of the most prestigious tournaments in the country? The answer lies in "Mr. Tennis"– Jack Bushman. In 1949, Mr. Bushman, a Montgomery resident, was the President of the Southern Lawn Tennis Association. He wanted to tie-in a world class tournament to the prestigious Blue Gray football classic. He envisioned starting an event similar to the world renowned Sugar Bowl junior tennis tournament that was played in conjunction with the Sugar Bowl football game. He decided, however, that the tournament should feature top college players rather than juniors. Mr. Bushman had been the captain of his tennis team at Louisiana State University and his memories of the excitement and color of college tennis was rooted deeply with his decision.
For the first 30 years, the Blue Gray was an individual contest rather than the present day team competition. In the beginning, the tournament was held at The Montgomery Country Club. In 1969, the site was moved to Huntingdon College for a few years until it was moved to the present locations of Lagoon Park and O'Conner Tennis Centers. During the time of individual competition, some of the finest college players in the country came to Montgomery to play the Blue Gray, many of whom went onto become some of the top professional players in the world. A brief list of names would include Stan Smith, Tony Trabert, Barry McKay, Chuck McKinley, Charlie Pasarell, Tim and Tom Gullickson, Kevin Curren, Steve Denton and Vince Van Patten.
The tournament continued to bring in top players such as exhibition matches by Pancho Gonzalez, Frankie Parker, Jack Kramer, and Bobby Riggs. In 1983, Mr. Bushman went to the NCAA Championships and approached top college coaches about the possibility of changing the format to a team competition. The coaches liked the idea of playing in a team tournament to prepare them for the season ending NCAA team event. The tournament was then reborn as a team event and remains so today.
Our BG journey begins with Arizona on Friday at 11:30 am. CT. We will then start match two with doubles only at the end of the afternoon. On Saturday, we will finish match two with the singles portion before taking a break and then playing match three in the midday. So there's lots of tennis in a two-day period that features Alabama, Arizona, Auburn, Middle Tennessee State, Nebraska, Princeton, Tulane and VCU. On the women's side the teams include Alabama, Arizona, Furman, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, Troy, Wake Forest and Yale.
So come down to Lagoon Park where the atmosphere is fun and festive while the tennis is simply terrific. Mr. Bushman's legacy and spirit live on in this great sporting event. If you can't make it, live scoring is available at RollTide.com. Here's to another exciting BG and continuing to build our response, growth and competitive fire.
Roll Tide,
George
Players Mentioned
