September 2009...

Six Pensacola area players waited out the rain and participated in the 7th Annual Orange Beach Adult Championships last weekend. Mary Day, Milton's Amaury Diaz and Lloyd Johnson won titles at the rain soaked event. Mary Day defeated Leah Nicholas 6-0, 6-0 to win the Women's 30 singles while Lloyd Johnson downed Birmingham's Joe Fleming 6-2, 6-4 to win the Men's 60 singles. Diaz teamed with new Fort Walton Beach Tennis Center pro, Nina Kamp to down Aaron Bauer of Fairhope, AL and Sonya Rogers of Daphne, Al 6-1, 4-6, 6-1 to win the Open Mixed Doubles.

Day also played open mixed with Joseph Wurth of Bowling Green, KY and Patricia Izbicki teamed with Crestview's Greg Bennett to beat Day and Wurth 6-2,6-4 in the consolation final.

Diaz and Bennett teamed in the Men's 30 Doubles and dropped the final 5-7,6-3,6-1 to Bauer and Orange Beach Director of Tennis Rhett Russell.

Johnson played in the Men's 50 singles as well and wound up playing Fleming again in the consolation final. Fleming got a measure of revenge in winning 6-4, 3-6, 10-3.

Finally, Scott Harrison and Linda Villanova played the 8.0 Mixed Doubles event. They were beaten in the final 6-4,6-2 by Beverly Billingsley (Orange Beach) and Greg Cornelius (Helena, AL).

Despite the rain, the tournament was completed and the 73 players received a T-shirt and enjoyed lunch on Saturday and pizzas on Saturday evening and Sunday evening.

The feature division was the Men's Open Singles and there was some terrific tennis provided by players from Alabama, Auburn-Montgomery (AUM), Troy and Southern Mississippi (USM). Unseeded Sadio Doumbia of AUM by way of France defeated top seeded Patricio Alvarado of USM by way of Ecuador 6-3, 7-6(4). The Men's open doubles was an all AUM final with Doumbia and Saad Benkirane downing teammates Cloudio Andrade and Florent Sentenac 6-2,6-1.