Autumn Cup Challenge opens Friday at Avalon with four teams

A Tennis Topics article by JOHN PACKETT, RTA Staff Writer

Three years ago, when Rob Johnson was the director of tennis at Avalon Recreation Association, he tried to get his club into the Anthem Challenge.

That’s the city-wide, doubles-only competition conducted annually among the area’s largest clubs to determine the best of the best. The Country Club of Virginia won this year’s event at the Westwood Club last month.

Avalon challenged Brandermill Country Club, which finished last among the 12 teams in the Anthem that year, for the final spot in the field for the coming year.

“I brought a team over to Brandermill and challenged them but lost,” Johnson said.

“But our team was so excited about doing something like that, so I thought why not get the rest of the smaller clubs that aren’t participating in it and let them have their own event. That winter, I called around to a lot of the clubs close to Avalon to see who wanted to do it.”

Johnson thought he had six clubs lined up for the first event but it turned out only three -- Avalon, Ridgetop and Kanawha recreation associations -- took part in the first one at Avalon.

“It was an incredible amount of fun and everyone had a great time,” Johnson said.

The third annual affair gets under way -- weather permitting -- on Friday at Avalon with a new name and a fourth team in the draw. It is scheduled to run through Sunday.

The name of the event for the first two years was the Recreation Club Challenge but it’s been changed to the Autumn Cup Challenge for 2009. Wendy Daniels of Kanawha created a logo and designed the T-shirts. Avalon won the initial tournament while Ridgetop claimed last year’s title.

The fourth team will be Richmond Country Club, which is known more for golf but has increased its tennis-playing membership in recent years under the direction of former city champion Jamie Hevron.

At first, Hevron was reluctant to commit the club to the event because he wasn’t sure if there were enough players to field a team.

“We were just worried about not having enough people to play,” Hevron said. “We just didn’t want to say we’d be involved and then realistically be 20 players short or something. That’s why we didn’t get in it last year.

“This year, our tennis committee chair, Susan Evans, took a good lead in recruiting people, and we filled the numbers and we’re pretty excited about it. We’ve had some of our ladies teams and mixed teams go to districts, so I think we’ve got a shot at it.”

Each club is required to field 22 teams and contribute $1,000 in sponsorship funding. Proceeds go to the Richmond Tennis Association’s inner-city junior program.

Much like the Anthem Challenge, the Autumn Cup Challenge uses the U.S. Tennis Association’s rating system to pair doubles teams. In this event, the teams range from the 2.5 to 4.0 levels.

For the purpose of involving more players, the levels for competition are 5.0, 6.0, 7.0 and 8.0. The 5.0 level, for example, will combine two 2.5 teams and has two men’s teams, two women’s teams and one mixed.

The 6.0 level, which will combine either two 3.0 teams or a 2.5 and a 3.5, will be composed of three men’s teams, three women’s teams and one mixed. The 7.0 level, which could be two 3.5s or a 4.0 and a 3.0, will also have three men’s, three women’s and one mixed.

The 8.0 level, which features two 4.0s, has one men’s, one women’s and one mixed. Teams receive two points for a win and one for a loss, with the team with the most points at the end of three days taking home the trophy.

There is a social Friday evening at Richmond CC and a pro challenge match scheduled for Saturday evening.

In case of inclement weather, the Autumn Cup Challenge will be postponed two weekends to Oct. 30-Nov. 1.

Charlie Palmer, director of tennis at Avalon, said the event committee is interested in adding more clubs in the future.

“We’re trying to expand it,” he said. “We’d like to have some clubs like Bon Air or Three Chopt and some others join us. Six would be nice and maybe one day even get it to eight. But that might be tough to do, since we only have eight courts here.”