It’s for Charity, right?
For the third straight year, the Town Club wins the Globall Tournament Trophy in a head-to-head match between Wisconsin’s two largest and best platform tennis clubs — 26-18.

The event, which helped raise over $10,000 for the Globall Giving charity (woo hoo!) was matched only by how great the weather was, how much good food/drink were available, and how much fun participants had in playing in the event.  Hats off to Aaron Gardner, Dan Einhorn and Curt Lundeen, among others who helped throughout the day!

Chad Bolliger was a big raffle winner – obtaining the Giannis autographed basketball, while the Brewers box seats and Bucks court side seats were won by people who shall remain nameless from the Town Club.

But, it wouldn’t be a club rivalry if there wasn’t some drama…
Strong words were aimed squarely at Town Club’s Captain Aaron Gardner (a former TCC member, btw) for an unusual 5-man roster.  Why?  Because in this flighted round-robin tournament, each club was supposed to choose three doubles teams to compete against each other.  However, TC “lost” a series of their top-rated players and used a five-man rotation in the first flight, upsetting the bracket.

“How do you do a round-robin with three teams each, if you only have five guys?” asked the Cedar Club six. 

If you do the math, five flights of three teams a piece, should result in 45 total matches.  For two years running, that number has not been reached. 

How hard can it be, Town Club?
With two of its Top 10 players suffering from afraiditis, the overall match was in disarray.  Apparently, four different scenarios were investigated by the Team Captains — and the worst choice, of course, was picked — leaving a few Cedar Clubbers out of sorts.

Despite it all, both the 1st and 2nd Flights were won by The Cedar Club, while the 3rd flight had a 4-5 deficit in matches.

Another poor performance by the 4th Flight…
It’s at the higher flights that Town Club’s depth took over to win the day, as the Cedar Club offered up a dozen hacks… er, players, from the full breadth of the club, like Mike Farley, Chad Bolliger, Jon Feldbruegge, Pat Laughlin and even international paddle sensation, Nicolas Bruneau.  Both the 4th and 5th Flights went 2-7 vs. Town Club.

“Hey, it’s a step in the right direction, if you ask me,” said Matt Moeser, who, last year was part of the 0-9 Fourth Flight.

And yet, as Frenchy so eloquently put it, “Je suis tellement heuruse que ma famille nous ait vu perdre si mal.”

Said TCC Captain Dan Einhorn, “It would be nice to have 30 healthy guys, who are not hungover at the event or playing with a torn meniscus, but beggars can’t be choosers. At the end of the day, I want to thank everyone for participating for a worthy cause, and TCC management will try to do better to field a winning team next year.”

Lick your wounds, fellas… there IS always next year.