3'rd Annual Delta Open at Sunshine Hills

On Monday night Ashraf and Matt had the night off at Burnaby and sqeezed in their men's 4.0 final. Ashraf prevailed in yet another tight three set match but kudos to both players who have seen their match delayed and postponed over and over and were still cheerful about the whole affair. Only the Men's 4.0 and 4.5 singles to go now...

For those that spent much time around the Delta Open this year, we all know that there were an unending number of options for this award. We had players helping on every front from cleaning courts to adjusting their schedules to arranging off-site matches and much much more.

We are pleased to award Jordan Bruneau a Babolat Tennis Raquet as the winner of our award. I was not at the courts the night that Jordan played Thomas Roston until the dark overtook them. When I did come back, several people stopped me to say that the match was not only fabulous to watch but the sporting attitude of the two young men was exemplary. When Thomas eventually won, he was the first to recognize Jordan and nominated him for the award. Congratulations, Jordan.

We also want to make special recognition for Peter Figasinski. Peter's demeanour - win or lose is always cheerful, his line calls are well beyond reproach, and if I need a court sqeegeed, I know who to call. Peter surely reaps the reward of his behaviour every day, but we would like to give him a small token of our appreciation which is free entry to next year's Delta Open.

We got three finals played today. The Highlight of the day was the marathon match in the Men's 3.0 singles final which Bruce Choy sqeeked out over Rodrigo Gutierrez. Marathon? Well we started at 10:40. After splitting a couple of tiebreakers we were at 3:15 and our court time was going to run out at 4:00 - just enough time to play a super tiebreaker, the way I saw it. Indeed, the tibreaker ended at 3:55 - a 5 hour and 15 imute match.

Now, these gentelmen were not wasting time between points or games, they just hit the ball in the court a lot. How much? Somewhere in the third set I got curious and started counting. One rally lasted 77 strokes! Most rallies lasted about 20. There was a let after 47 strokes on one point. Late in the third, a rally went 108 strokes and we thought we had seen everything. But no, in the final tiebreaker, at 4-4 Bruce came through in a 195 stroke rally. Think about that. That's enough strokes for 2 full sets the way I play. It was truly too bad that either had to lose this match, but there is always Burnaby and I have called Glenn to make sure he knows to make a scheduling allowance should they meet again...

The tournament director and the members of the tournament committee at the Delta Open would like to gratefully acknowledge the contribution of the Richmond Country Club to our tournament. The RCC provided us with the use of their facility for the semis and finals of the open division of the Delta Open on Saturday and Sunday June 17 and 18. Without this support, we would have been unable to complete the event on time, nor would the umpires and lines crews have had the opportunity to practice their trade.

From Northeast via the Alex Fraser bridge from Vancouver and Richmond. Go east across Richmond on the connector (Highway 91) to the Alex Fraser. Come south over the bridge, turn left at 72nd Ave, take your first right on Westview, your first left on Southridge, your fourth left on Huff, your fourth right on Carncross. The courts are on the left. more info