Pleasant Hill Tennis Club P.O. Box 23503, Pleasant Hill, California
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USTA Leagues Info & 2009 PHTC National Team Story
PHTC USTA Leagues Current Teams and Upcoming Leagues
Adult League: 2010 Team Registration begins January 2010/CAPTAINS NEEDED
Team Captain Phone Season Start Senior Men 3.5 Jim Karas jkaras1036@sbcglobal.net 672-5972 9/09 Senior Women 3.0 Ruth Wong ruthiew@frys.com 672-8128 9/09 Senior Men 3.5 Robert Young robert@canterburytrails.com 906-0614 9/09 Senior Men 3.0 Gary Orcutt gohome88@gmail.com 427-4075 9/09 Mixed 6.0 Stan Armstrong stanarmstrong@comcast.net 256-0838 1/10 Mixed 6.0 Kelly Williams kellyhensl@aol.com 372-7650 1/10 Mixed 7.0 Linda Walling-Stone lwallingst@sbcglobal.net 969-0616 1/10 Adult W2.5 Nicole Jones watkingsway@yahoo.com 551-8927 3/10 Adult W3.0 Kelly Williams kellyhensl@aol.com 372-7650 3/10
Super Senior 65: 2010 Team Registration begins January 2010/CAPTAINS NEEDED
Super Senior 60: 2010 Team Registration begins April 2010/CAPTAINS NEEDED
Senior Men/Women: 2010 team Registration begins July 2010/CAPTAINS NEEDEDInterested in captaining a team? Contact USTA Coordinator Patric Thomas or ask any Board Member for information. Consult the NORCAL website for details on future league seasons and guidance for potential captains. Team registration opens approximately two months prior to the season start date which is a good time to start team practices. Home matches are shown on our calendar page.
Overview. The Northern California Section of the USTA, better known as NORCAL sponsors many "leagues" that provide the opportunity to join other members of your club in competing against teams from other clubs. League winners qualify to go "upward and onward" in playoffs that, depending on the league, may include the opportunity to play for a national championship. A typical league competition will consist of three doubles matches or three doubles matches plus two singles matches. Each league has participant requirements with respect to sex, age, and USTA rating. Different types of leagues play at different times of the year. The Pleasant Hill Tennis Club primarily participates in leagues for USTA players with "NTRP" ratings of 3.0 and 3.5. (A reference to a "6.0" or "7.0" team indicates the combined ratings of both players in a doubles match cannot exceed that number.) Click here for a copy of USTA rating chart. The relevant ratings are those in the NTRP column. Players initially acquire a rating by choosing a rating when registering for a USTA team. Players should consult with an experienced club member before doing this. If a rating is too high, the player will not be competitive. If the rating is too low, the player's team may later forfeit matches. The results of all USTA matches are kept in the USTA's computer database. The computer adjusts player ratings twice a year based on match results. For a list of current and recent Pleasant Hill Tennis Club teams, including rosters, schedules, and results, click on the "NorCal Search" link in the left column of the NORCAL home page. Then select "teams" in the first search box, enter "pleasant hill" in the second box, and click the Search button.
Team Captains. Teams are organized by captains. Any club member is eligible to register and captain a team for a particular league. (Club permission is required but is routinely granted in most cases. Contact the "USTA Coordinator" member of the Board of Directors for more information.) A team captain recruits team members (with the help of the club's Board of Directors if requested), determines the number of players who will be allowed on the roster, schedules practices and matches, and chooses which players will play in which matches. Most PHTC captains attempt to assure that all members of the team get substantial playing opportunities, but a captain has the right to play only the best team members--particularly if the captain believes the team might win the league and be successful in the playoffs. Members interested joining a team should always consult the captain before registering for the team on the NORCAL web site.
Membership Requirements. USTA league players on PHTC teams must be members of both PHTC and the USTA. Click here to join the USTA. NORCAL charges a player registration fee of approximately $20 per player per team. Many captains request a $5-$10 contribution to cover the cost of match and practice balls. Players are also asked to contribute refreshments for consumption at home matches.
PHTC 2009 National Team - and then there's Robert!
Robert Young lead his 3.0 Senior Men's team through an outstanding season of Local, District and Sectional wins - all the way to USTA National Championships in Tucson. The team won their first two matches at Nationals eventually losing in the quarter-finals. Congratulations to Robert and team members: Russ Eddy (Co-Captain), Patric Thomas, Patrick Farrell, Bill Sherrard, Oscar Estante, Steve Lawrence, Bill Ardis, Jeff Strathmeyer, Radoslav Radev, Bill Drysdale, Alan Manewitz, Wolf Sexauer, and the late George Higgins. PHTC is mighty proud of you!!! Read on to find out how Robert made further news.
The article below by Doug Drotman appears on the USTA Norcal website. Robert (left) is pictured here with David Sprague of St. Paul, MN who also overcame injury and is now playing with both hands.
Excerpt from "Give These Guys a Hand" by Doug Drotman, USTA.com
Little did Robert Young of Pleasant Hill, CA, know that a left-shoulder injury suffered in a truck accident in Vietnam in 1971, would be his ticket to the 2009 USTA League National Championships. Young, who had played A A l eltennis left-handed for more than 40 years, and reached a peak of 4.5 in 1976, had never qualified for the Nationals. In 2008 he was forced to stop playing tennis left-handed when he could no longer take the pain from his arthritic shoulder. Rather than having surgery, Young, who swings a golf club and baseball bat right-handed, decided to make the switch. He enlisted the help of local tennis pro John Vargas and began taking weekly lessons to learn the game all over again - this time as a right-handed player. A 3.5 player, he then petitioned the USTA with a medical appeal asking to be reclassified as a 3.0 player if he agreed to play only right-handed. "The hardest part of making the switch was remembering which pocket to put the extra ball into," joked Young. "Actually I have trouble with balls hit directly at me. Forty years of instinct tell me to hit it lefty. But I did learn that my reflexes at the net are much better righty. I get to balls righty I never got as a lefty." Upon returning from the Nationals, Young is scheduled to have a complete shoulder replacement which will keep him on the sidelines for six weeks. When asked if he plans to go back to his old ways after the surgery, Young declined. "I'm a righty here to stay. I really like the challenge of learning the game all over again."
