Astra Zeneca narrowed the gap
to a two-game deficit in the men’s doubles. Its “Foreign Legion” of Rogelio Mosquedo, a native of Mexico
City and Johan Hoegstedt of Sweden initially played even against Vince Maximo and Orest Skoplyak, a recent UD Ph.D. graduate
in chemical engineering from Lviv, Ukraine, now working at DuPont.
With the score tied at 4-4, Baker
subbed for Maximo and Martin Tenlen, another Swede, went in for Mosquedo, to put an all Swedish-team on the court for Astra
Zeneca. The two Viking giants controlled the net with powerful overheads. And although Tenlen sported a stubbly grey beard
and Hoegstedt was nearly bald, both were a lot faster than they looked getting to balls. The Swedes ran away with the set,
8-4.
The sides split the two mixed
doubles sets. Tenlen and Coyle took Baker and Vince Maximo’s wife Julia (captain Travis subbed for her midway through
the contest) 8-5 for Astra Zeneca. In general, the competition was marked by outstanding sportsmanship, but the emotions of
the close struggle spilled over into one lengthy argument in this set over an “out” call on one of Tenlen’s
powerful serves. In the end, the players settled the matter themselves without needing the intervention of match referee Kitty
Perrin who had walked over to see what the hubbub was all about.
Going down to the
wire
The other mixed doubles was the
designated match, meaning those players would go on to decide things in a supertiebreaker if necessary. To set up such a supertiebreaker,
first UD had to take the set and they needed another tiebreaker to do that, 8-7. In that first tiebreak, Hoegstedt and Cohen
ran off to a 4-1 lead for Astra Zeneca over UD’s Skoplyak and Pollack and they were up 6-4 but they couldn’t close
out the set and UD came back, setting up the 25-25 tie.
In the 13-point supertiebreaker
to decide the whole match, Skoplyak and Pollack ran out to a 6-4 lead for UD and held three match points. That’s when
Hoegstedt, a VP for business development at the Wilmington-based drug maker, showed what Swedish meatballs are made of and
refused to budge (no drug tests were applied afterwards).
First he drilled UD’s Pollack
at the net with a hard shot she couldn’t handle to pull his side within 6-5, then he put a ball right between Pollack
and Skoplyak on which they got in each other’s way to tie the score at 6-6 and after a spirited rally, he put the match
away with a strong cross-court forehand just out of the diving Skoplyak’s reach to the loud cheers of his teammates
on the sidelines.
In answer to the question as to
whether performance-enhancing drugs might have been involved, Mosquedo, who recently got a big promotion at AZ to executive
director of pharmacology, quipped: “That all depends on your definition of performance-enhancing.”
In all seriousness, however, the
“Foreign Legion” of AZ’s two Viking giants, with the Mexican sub and the female energizer bunny from Vietnam
proved too powerful for all competition, foreign and domestic.
Astra Zeneca is a big supporter
of tennis, having opened its grounds to host the now defunct Delaware Smash of WTT for three years 2005-2007 and Captain Cheryl
Umbles knows how to get her team going with a “squeeze,” a rallying cry from her college track coaching days that
gets her players to squeeze out that little extra effort at the right time. The team also knows how to relax and have fun.
When Hoegstedt was trailing, Mosquedo jokingly yelled out to him from the sidelines that he’d have to buy the team his
usual winner’s gift of a bottle of Swedish Absolut vodka anyway, even if he “tanked” the match. That seemed
to spur Hoegstedt on. Since he’d have to buy a bottle for the team anyway, he apparently decided he might as well win
it – and he did.
It almost didn’t
happen
Ironically, the final matchup
between the two Delaware teams almost didn’t happen because in the opening match on Friday evening, UD came as close
as possible to getting tripped up by one of the Philadelphia teams, Everyone’s Racquet. At the end of regulation time,
UD was actually trailing 22-25. However, because of the WTT rules which prevent a leading team from just “running out
the clock,” the match went into overtime because Everyone’s Racquet’s “designated” mixed doubles
team had lost the final set.
The team is named for the tennis
store on South 12th Street in Center City Philadelphia owned by Joe Falzone. Its captain, family practice physician
Daisy Wynn, wanted to put her best mixed doubles combination on the court for the overtime, but tournament rules prevented
her from doing that. “Actually, your No. 2 mixed doubles team should be your No. 1 team, even though that seems contradictory,”
explained match referee Perrin.
Captain Wynn could make only one
substitution, replacing pianist Matt Bengston (maybe his fingers were just too delicate) with Kutztown college player Nick
Feden against the UD combination of Skoplyak and Pollack, which was on a roll.
UD reeled off three straight games
when Feden lost serve, hitting a ball into the net, Pollack held with a good game and Captain Wynn was broken for a 25-25
tie. UD took the supertiebreaker 7-5 on a powerful smash by Skoplyak, who was the best player on the court with delicate angles
at the net.
Philadelphia Tennis
Club takes 3rd
The Philadelphia Tennis Club (PTC),
captained by Cecelia Hodge, took third place in the tournament over Everyone’s Racquet (ER), 32-18.
Despite the lopsided score, that
match went into overtime as well at 31-16 because PTC’s designated mixed doubles team of Devoun Wilburn and Kallie Speller,
who had won the corporate finals last year in New York with a Wyeth company team, lost the “designated” mixed
doubles set 8-7 to ER’s Feden and Yulia Bolotova, a talented player from the Urals region of Russia.
To pull out the match and take
the third-place trophy, Feden and Bolotova were faced with the formidable task of winning 15 games in a row and taking the
contest into a supertiebreaker.
“I don’t understand
the first thing about this scoring system, but I’ll stay out here for as long as I have to,” Feden said as he
started to try and climb that mountain.
They won two games to pull to
within 31-18, but then Wilburn took Everyone’s Racquet out of its misery with a powerful smash at the net for the 32-18
victory folr the Philadelphia Tennis Club.
Plans for next year
Plans for next year’s event,
organized by tournament director Florence “Bambi” Dudley and held under the watchful eyes of Marlynn Orlando,
executive director of USTA Middle States, include a pro-am round against the best residents of the Sea Colony development
in the Delaware beach resort.
Complete results of the
2009 USTA Middle States Corporate League Tennis Challenge, Sea Colony Resort, Bethany Beach, DE, May 8-9.
First Round (May 8)
University
of Delaware defeats Everyone’s Racquet 26-25 (OT)
Men’s Doubles: Everyone’s
Racquet with Cornell/Feden 8; UD with V. Maximo(Baker)/Skoplyak) 5
Women’s Doubles: Everyone’s
Racquet with Wynn/Bolotova 8; UD with Travis/Pollack 5
Mixed Doubles No. 1: Everyone’s
Racquet with Cornell/Bolotova 8; UD with Baker/J. Maximo 3
Mixed Doubles No. 2: UD with Skoplyak/Pollack
8; Everyone’s Racquet with Bengston/Wynn 1.
OT: UD with Skoplyak/Pollack 4;
Everyone’s Racquet with Feden/Wynn 0.
Astra Zeneca
defeats Philadelphia Tennis Club 27-25
Men’s Doubles: AZ with Hoegstedt/Tenlen
8; PTC with Cappelli/Isaacs 2
Women’s Doubles: PTC with
Speller/Davis 8; AZ with Coyle/Cohen 6
Mixed Doubles No. 1: PTC with
Jones/Powell 8; AZ with Brown/Cohen
Mixed Doubles No. 2: AZ with Mosqueda/Umbles
8; PTC with Wilburn/Bell 7
Second Round, May 9
Astra Zeneca defeats Everyone’s Racquet 29-16
Men’s Doubles: AZ with Hoegstedt/Tenlen 8; ER with Feden/Cornell 1
Women’s
Doubles: ER with Wynn/Bolotova 8; AZ with Coyle/Cohen 5
Mixed
Doubles No. 1: AZ with Mosqueda/Cohen 8; ER with Bengston/Wynn 1
Mixed
Doubles No. 2: AZ with Brown/Umbles 8; ER with Cornell/Bolotova 6
University of Delaware defeats Philadelphia
Tennis Club 30-13
Men’s Doubles: PTC with
Cappelli/Isaacs 8; UD with V.Maximo(Baker)/Skoplyak 6
Women’s Doubles: UD with
Travis/Pollack 8; PTC with Powell/Bell 0
Mixed Doubles No. 1: UD with Baker/J.Maximo
8; PTC with Jones/Speller 3
Mixed Doubles No. 2: UD with Skoplyak/Pollack
8; PTC with Wilburn/Speller 2
Third and Final Round,
May 9
Philadelphia
Tennis Club defeats Everyone’s Racquet 32-18 (OT)
Men’s Doubles: PTC with
Cappelli/Isaacs 8; ER with Cornell/Feden 2
Women’s Doubles: PTC with
Speller/Davis 8; ER with Wynn/Bolotova 5
Mixed Doubles No. 1: PTC with
Jones/Davis 8; ER with Wynn/Bengston 1
Mixed Doubles No. 2: ER with Feden/Bolotova
8; PTC with Wilburn/Speller 7
OT: PTC with Wilburn/Speller 1,
ER with Feden/Bolotiva 2
Final:
Astra Zeneca 26, University
of Delaware 25 (supertiebreaker)
Men’s Doubles: AZ with Hoegstedt/Mosqueda(Tenlen)
8; UD with Skoplyak/V.Maximo(Baker) 4
Women’s Doubles: UD with
Travis/Pollack 8, AZ with Coyle/Umbles(Cohen) 2
Mixed Doubles No. 1: AZ with Tenlen/Coyle
8; UD with Baker/J.Maximo(Travis) 5
Mixed Doubles No. 2: UD with Skoplyak/Pollack
8; AZ with Hoegstedt/Cohen 7
AZ with Hoegstedt/Cohen win supertiebreaker
over Skoplyak/Pollack 7-6.
