Season closing

As ninth  season of the RTL comes to the end I wanted to thank you all for participating and being part of it. I hope you had great time out on the courts for the past 5 months. We had a large influx of new players and trend of RTL's growth continues . Men's league expanded to 9 divisions with  72 players , women's singles had 24 players in 3 divisions and doubles had 54 in the first session and half of that in the next two. RTL  scheduled   over 1000 matches this year (983 official matches plus pre-season placement and inter-league) .  Our match completion rate for entire year ( all 3 branches factored in) was around 84% which is in line with previous seasons.  As in the past ,  we kept  up an excellent completion rate through first 2 sessions and then an inevitable drop happened in the third session..  Generally players are less enthusiastic about tennis at the end of a long outdoor season, some injuries set in , loss of daylight and Sunday deadline contribute to more matches  missed  then earlier in the season. Also some players might not be as interested in playing consolation rounds after they lose a match. Unfortunately  lack of commitment by a few players  can negatively reflect on the whole  league so  in the future we will be offering non competitive options for those players that can't keep up with the schedule.  I plan to set up a group for casual players who will be able to set up matches among each other as they wish without deadlines , schedule or obligation to report scores. Players that show pattern of missing matches  and  not reporting scores  will be moved to this  group.  I think this will be better for them and also better for those expecting to play a match every week on the competitive side of the league.  Players  missing matches due to  injuries   will be exempt.

I wanted to thank our crew of dedicated volunteers that helped us update scores and organize the league this summer . Great job as always , I am sure your efforts are appreciated by all RTL members  . Dave Pewowaruk, Dustin Kuchera, Art Smet, John Fritz, Merry Morris, Jocelyn Coy, Chris Jones  doubles branch coordinator and Keegan Hakala for organizing two inter league meets this year. Also thanks to everyone that helped promote the league refer new players, send out suggestions and opinions about our set up, format and rules etc.


2014 Finals
Season closing event was held at Stewartville HS courts on  Saturday 9/27. We witnessed 3 great singles finals going to 3 sets.
Congratulations to session III champions:
Women's singles Merry Morris
Men's singles Tuan Truong
Men's singles level 2 Nathan Hellyer

And to  2014 runner ups
Tammy Fritz
Joel Hickman
Patton Prunty

Also congratulations to session III doubles champions
D1 Jeager/Rivera/Linder
D2 Fursa/Hettinger/Berg





Awards
As you know, all returning players  participate in RTL free of charge. Only players joining for the first time are required to pay one time registration fee. Due to a large number of new players that joined us this year (fees collected) we were able to  pass $900 worth of gift cards and trophies to divisional winners  and end of the season champions.  Hopefully we will be able to keep doing  this in the future.

Inerleague

Second interleague meet this year was played in Cannon Falls on sept 13th.
RTL lost 4-8. Here are the scores

1S Joel Hickman vs. Josiah Hakala W 4-2,4-1

2S Maksim Lecic vs. Jim Chanthakhoun L 0-4,4-1,(7-10)

3S Ron Steffens vs. Venkat Srinivasan W 4-1,4-1

4S Keegan Hakala vs. Duc Le W 5-4,2-4,(10-6)

5S Merry Morris vs. Whitney Quast L 1-4,2-4

6S Liz Johnson vs. Cooper Ericksen L 0-4,3-5

7S Melinda Aakre vs. Garrett Brown L 0-4,2-4

8S Soudabeh Kargar vs. Robin Brown L 2-4,4-5

1D Hickman/Steffens vs. Chanthakhoun/Marlo Pranke L 4-2,0-4,(10-12)

2D Hakala/Lecic vs. Hakala/Srinivasan W 1-4,5-3,(10-3)

3D Johnson/Shruthi Naik vs. Le/Quast L 0-4,0-4

4D Aakre/Kargar vs. R.Brown/Ericksen L 0-4,0-4

Final: L 4-8

All session III  scores and final standings are posted online, Previous sessions are moved to history page where you can view past scores dating back to 2006. Your session III results will determine what division you play next spring. So long for now,  hope to see you all back next year.