We're going to the USTA League Tennis Mixed Doubles State Championships!

For the second year in a row! That’s right, while my 7.0 team failed to win its second straight (spring) Atlanta City Championship, we did qualify for the Georgia State Championships in Augusta this August.

After winning our division, we were the third seed in the postseason tournament and, after winning 3 rounds of playoff matches, ended up meeting the first seed in the City Finals last Friday night. We have a tremendously deep team with several experienced and successful pairings to choose from, so our captain had her work cut out for her to select the best lineup. She went with two of our woman 4.0/man 3.0 combinations and one 3.5/3.5 combo. Unfortunately the team we played was also very talented especially since their 8.0 team had lost the week before so all of their 4.0 men were available. Their 4.0 men/3.0 women combinations were better than ours that night, so we received ‘silver’ (not ‘gold’, like last year) City Finalist medallions. As such, we received an invitation to the State Championship tournament in August for the second year in a row.

Almost!

However, this is a very different team, and a much larger one than last year’s (only five from our 2010 team are pictured above). Last summer, three key team members were unable to make the trip, which is probably the reason why our captain added so many new players to this spring’s roster. How many of our 2011 players will be able to travel to Augusta this year remains to be seen, but I like our chances given our team’s depth. Of course, we’ll likely have to meet (and beat) our Atlanta nemesis in the tournament if we hope to advance to Sectionals.

Wish us luck!