What a Weekend!
So I just got back from the LI Open. I was planning on starting my blog last night but as it turns out when we got to the hotel at 10:00 last night the internet connection was not working nor was our phone! Needless to say we won't be staying at that hotel again. We even had the wrong wake up call Sunday morning because they didn't take the time change into consideration. Well as it is every year, this weekend was just a great tournament. The Long Island Open has been going on for over 30 years and it seems to get better and better. There were 200 participants in the draw with early rounds for the men's open on Friday night. I have to give props to Tom Keogh who works his butt off to make this a great tournament. Here is the run down on all the open divisions:
Men's Pro Open Singles: Top seeds were Jason Thoerner, Ruben Gonzalez, Jason Sylvestor and Shai Manzuri, and the fifth seed was Dan Llacera (where the heck has he been all this time?) The semi's were set with Jason playing Shai in one half and then Ruben and Dan in the other. Dan had a great match on Saturday where he beat Jason Sylvestor. Jason beat Shai in one semi and then Ruben beat Dan. This was a tough match to watch as both Ruben and Dan were injured and they were playing there heart out. Jason won in the finals by an injury forfeit from Ruben.
Men's Open Doubles - Jason Thoerner was originally supposed to play with Sudsy but Sudsy dropped out of the tournament on Friday so he paired up with Ruben. Not a bad replacment. They ended up playing against Shane Wood and Sanjay LaForest in the finals where they won in a tiebreaker. Jason and Ruben were just amazing to watch and really wowed the crowd in their matches.
Women's Pro/Open Singles. - Top seeds were Rhonda Rajsich, Cheryl Gudinas-Holmes, myself and Kimi Ferina. All ladies adanced to the semis' with ease. Rhonda beat Kimi in her semi and then Cheryl beat me. Ugh, I wish I would of played better. I know I can play with these ladies it just seems whenever I get on the court with them in singles I am a bundle of nerves. My hands were even shaking, I just couldn't calm down and play my game! Oh well, as someone "famous" says: It is what it is Aimee. In the finals, Cheryl ended up beating Rhonda 12-10 in the fifth game. This was a pretty long match. When we left Cheryl had just lost the first game 12-10 after being up 8-2, so good for her for playing great all weekend and staying strong! Cheryl needed a confidence booster and this was it. This will definitely help her going into the US Open in two weeks. Congrat's to Cheryl.
Women's Open Doubles - The finals were Rhonda and Jean Halahan against Anita Maldonado and myself. Anita and I pulled it out in the breaker. We won the 1st game and then in the 2nd Rhonda was just on fire, and in the breaker we just stuck to our game plan, and pulled it out. This was doubles so I was back to my old self. Kudos to Anita for playing great, I think she either turned 50 or is about to and she was diving all over the court.
Mixed Open Doubles - In the finals were Rhonda/Sanjay againt Jason and myself. Let me start off by saying that Sanjay is my normal mixed doubles partner unlesss JT comes to town, so when I found out he was playing with Rhonda (the #1 player in the world; and even though I was already playing with JT) I was a little....FINE I will admit it...I was jealous. I mean we always play mixed together. So I've been giving him a ton of heat this weekend. I even told him that he shouldn't be allowed to mixed with anyone other than me..!! hahaha, I know that's so wrong and I am playing with Jason Thoerner, but I don't care, I'm a girl! Anyway, Jason and I beat them 15-2, 15-8. I guess that will teach Sanjay for playing with someone else.
Well, that is my LI Open wrap up. There were 3 fights this weekend, two on the rball courts and 1 on the basketball court and that is where the cops were called because someone filed a police report. The fights on the rball court? Wow, it was pretty bad. I think all the matches had stopped playing and everyone just watched what was going on...In one fight they started throwing punches at each other and in the other one the guy was waiting outside the club so he could kick his opponents butt! Even the girlfriends and wives were getting into it screaming at each other. People were standing on chairs and sofas trying to see what ws going on... Well, all I can say to that is: Only in NY.
Thanks everyone for reading my blog! I hope to do another blog the weekened of the NJAR's New Jersey Open in December. I'll be blogging to let everyone know what it is like to run a tournament and also play a tournament as well. It is a endless amount of work.
Aimee
PS - Bubie - Thank you being so supportive this weekend. I know win or lose you are proud of me. :-)
For pictures from this event please visit: http://picasaweb.google.com/JonathanClay.JSRS/2007LongIslandOpen
Sunday, November 04, 2007 6:18:37 PM
POSTED BY New Jersey Amateur Racquetball (NJAR) AT 11/04/2007 5:44 PM
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