May 1-2, 2009...

The 2009 Derby Day tennis event went off on schedule Friday and Saturday May 1 and 2 at The Club in Gulf Breeze. If you didn't play, you sure missed a fun event. The event filled up on the women's side (32 players) but was a little light on the men's side (16). With various substitutes and all, the total number of players was over 50.

One of the neat things about this event is that Club professional, Brian Sakey, makes all the pairings, except if someone gets sick like Scott Harrison did. Scott got his own substitute, Buddy Miles, and neither his men's partner, Holger Schneidt, nor his mixed partner, Mary Day, was too disappointed since they won their divisions! The result of Brian making the pairings is that folks get to play with people whom they haven't partnered before and some really great matches resulted.

All the matches were 8 game pro sets with regular scoring. As a result of the even pairings, there were many matches that went for over an hour. Players played two matches on Friday and 4 on Saturday. That meant that there were many, many players who played over 4 hours of tennis on Saturday alone! Combine that with shishkabobs on Friday evening with Asian salad and brown rice, hotdogs and hamburgers from the grill on Saturday, never ending soft drinks and adult beverages, a T-shirt for the guys and canvas tote bag for the women and free new balls for each match and players got a terrific value for their entry fee dollar.

Naturally after all the awards were passed out, about 4:00PM, there was a Derby party for watching that amazing win by Mine that Bird!

The tournament format consisted of round robins in two men's divisions, four mixed divisions and due to the shortage of men, six women's doubles divisions. The winners were as follows:

Men's Divisions:

• Men's Donkeys - Holger Schneidt and Buddy Miles.
• Men's Broncos - Duane Lefur and Jim Patteson.

Friday Ladies Divisions:

• Lady Donkeys - Retsy Wilson and Julie Schneidt.
• Lady Clydesdales - Allison Randol and Keitha Brown.
• Lady Broncos - Marguerite Parker and Jeanette Mortaro.
• Lady Arabians - Mary Howard and Trish Simon.

Saturday Ladies Divisions:

• Lady Clydesdales - Donna Siskind and Keitha Brown.
• Lady Arabians - Mary Howard and Sara Beth Soule.

Mixed Divisions:

• Mixed Broncs (A) - Mike and Jana Nicholson.
• Mixed Broncos (B) - Scott Peck and Terry Bullock.
• Mixed Arabians (A) - Jim Patteson and team Holly Barrett/Jean Lee/Krysta Edge.(Nice partners Jim!)
• Mixed Arabians (B) - Buddy Miles and Mary Day.