12 October, 2015

Eastern Men’s Team Brings Home Fifth National Open Team Championship


(Editor's Note: This post was written by Kelsey Clark and originally posted on the Eastern USTA site on 9/5/2015)
The New York Athletic Club (NYAC) men’s tennis team recently won its fifth championship during the National Open Team Championships at the Darling Tennis Center in Las Vegas. The tournament benefited the American Cancer Society.
“The quality of players Jeff brings elevates the competition,” Susan Johnson Maurer, the National Open Team Championships tournament director said. “He puts a lot of work into this tournament and is very supportive of charity events.”
The team, which plays out of the New York Athletic Club in Pelham, N.Y., as well as Manhattan, is captained by Jeffrey Appel and features: Jason Jung, Adam El Mihdawy, Dan Cochrane, Cameron Silverman, Jhonson Garcia and James Cluskey.
“Jeff loves tennis, and the fact that his team challenges for a National Championship every year is indicative of that,” Cedric Jones, director of athletics at New York Athletic Club said. “He is a great ambassador for tennis, not only in New York, but also for the club.” 
The NYAC team has won the National Open Team Championship five times in the last six years.
“It feels great to be a part of this accomplishment,” Appel said. “It’s important to prove that strong tennis does exist in New York, and I enjoy keeping those thoughts alive.”

11 March, 2015

Winter Is Going


 Last night 14,894 Feder-I mean-tennis fans piled into Madison Square Garden for the 8th annual BNP Paribas Showdown. The exhibition event, the centerpiece of World Tennis Day, starred Hall of Famers Gabriela Sabatini and Monica Seles, alongside 17-time major champion Roger Federer and Grigor Dimitrov.

Given the bracing cold of this New York winter, the sight of tennis, with its perpetually tanned competitors, doing (something approximating) battle in midtown Manhattan was as sure a sign of the spring thaw underway as the sudden vanishing of our street corner slush ponds.

So how did this Showdown fare as an exhibition event?  Let’s go to the checklist.

·      Witty banter between opponents? Check.

·      Circus shots, including a tweener or two?  Check.

·      Cute kid “randomly” plucked from the audience? Check.

·      That kid being a ringer who knows how to wield a racquet well enough to take softballs from the pros? Check.

·      Some spellbinding tennis that almost makes you forget that these aren’t fully competitive matches. Check.

All in all, the event succeeded.