July 23, 2021 – Team Wake Orthopaedics moved into 2nd place in the league standings with a strong 3-1 victory over defending champs Team RDUTennis in a match played at the Springdale Area Recreation Club. Yes, you read that correctly. After 3 years and 3 previous attempts, we finally had clear skies and played a Raleigh Pro League match at Springdale.
Team RDUTennis had to default the Men’s 1 court so Wake Ortho started with a 1-0 court advantage. Special thanks to Quentin Guichard from Team White Dahlia for stepping in to play the court as an exhibition with RDU’s Brian Rosenthal to win an 8-game Pro Set over Team Wake Ortho’s Justin Roberson and Matthew Moody. The mixed doubles court finished first as Wake Ortho’s Caylan Ashworth and Jon Davis were just too powerful for RDU’s Jessica Mauney and Carlos Garcia with Ashworth/Davis wining the court 6-1 6-0. Meanwhile the Men’s 2 and Women’s courts were locked in fierce battles on the front courts with both splitting sets and going into 3rd set tiebreaks. Wake Ortho’s Glen Kitner and Lilo Pelegrino stepped it up in the tiebreak to win their court 6-3 3-6 10-5 over RDU’s Josh Franceschina and Philip Faulkner to seal the team victory for Wake Ortho. Team RDU’s solo court win finished out the evening as Tessie Choo and Joanna Nalborska pulled out the win on the Women’s court over Wake Ortho’s Caitlin Whoriskey and Kris McGrath 5-7 6-4 10-7 in arguably the best match of the evening.
Congratulations to Praveen Chandrasekhar who won a Yonex 9-slot tennis bag and Brandon Brown who won a Wilson Clash tennis racquet both provided by sponsor Bryans Tennis.
Once again, a fun night of tennis and it was capped off with Springdale’s after-party. It may have taken 3 years to get a match done here, but I think everyone enjoyed it finally happening.