Chicago Charities Women's APTA Grand Prix
Posted on 11/5/2024 12:00:00 AM by APTA
Winners Lynn Burus and Macie Elliott
Finalists Florentina Hanisch and Ana Marija Zubori
6-4, 6-4
Sara and Emily MacKay—our Wisconsonian civilian boots on the ground—wrote about their experience at the 2024 Chicago Charities: “We started out at Glen View, and won our first match against a nice team, which put us in the front side of the draw and allowed us to stay at Glen View for another round. We wore our matching 'Paddle' red sweatshirts and ran into Mark Innes, so we posed with him for 'miPaddle in the Wild.'
In our second match, we experienced, for the first time, having an umpire on the court. We were definitely a bit nervous, and we were playing a seeded team. I served the first point of the match and was called for footfaulting. I’ve never had anyone check my feet before this when serving, so perhaps I have been footfaulting my entire life without knowing! Our umpire was umping her first match, so we were all newbies out there (minus our opponents, of course). We had lunch with our new umpire friend at the Glen View Club afterward. She is a doctor by trade and a player herself. She said she looked around and only saw male umpires and thought we should have some female umpires and then thought, “Why not me?” It was pretty cool to have someone calling the score for us. With how high up she sits, we mostly forgot she was there while playing. We’ve now hit two career landmarks this season—winning tournament money (Medinah Cup) and having an umpired match.
One big takeaway from the weekend was—if we’re not having fun, we’re doing it wrong! During the second match, we lost the first set,1-6, and we were tight. Emily whispered behind her racquet, as if we were strategizing, “Let’s have fun!” After that, we won the next few points. So there you go, that’s the whole point—let’s have fun!
Another big takeaway—don’t leave after you are out of the tournament. We came back to watch the women’s quarterfinals and had a great time seeing the friends we’ve made over the last year. When we showed up to Charities for our first tournament one year ago, we had no idea what we were doing and knew no one. One year later, we could hardly believe how many people we’ve met and become friends with. This is also what paddle is all about—the incredibly welcoming and fun community. We spent time catching up with the APTA staff and crew—Karen, Tiernan, Amin, and Demian. A deep heartfelt thank you goes to everyone at the APTA who makes us feel so a part of the paddle family, despite not being top players. We loved talking with Alison Morgan—we played her at The Medinah Cup and she couldn’t have been nicer to us. We spent time with Jill Jackson and Marie Matrka, who we played against at the Boston Nationals and who also couldn’t have been nicer to us. We’ve met a few Chicago players now who have invited us to come down and play with them at their clubs, which we look forward to.
On Saturday afternoon, we watched Andrew Ong and Robert Stineman win their round of 16 match in a third set. We picked up right away how much fun Andrew seemed to be having on the court—huge smile during and at the end of all points, whether he won or lost. He obviously knows about our first takeaway. Mark Innes interviewed us on camera to plug support for the Brew City Open in Milwaukee (November 16). We can hardly remember what we said. We are grateful for everyone who supported us at tournaments last year and we are excited to “pay it forward” by hosting players in Milwaukee, the first APTA tournament for a few on the roster. We’ve got some very Milwaukee-themed trophies for the winners.
Our final takeaway would be—we’ve got so much room for growth. We do acknowledge that we have come a long way over the past year. However, we are excited and inspired again after watching the quarterfinals, semifinals, and finals to keep working on our game. We got some advice at Medinah that we were hitting tennis volleys. We logged into miPaddle and found two videos on how to hit paddle volleys and we are now working on that. We are super open and appreciative of any tips and advice people are willing to share with us.
We are absolutely planning to go to Philly for Nationals in March! We wouldn’t dream of missing this, after the Disneyland experience of Boston last year. We can only hope that there is a mascot, DJ, and t-shirt gun for the finals again. We are scanning through the tournament schedule to see where else we might play this season. Our final thought: We think our takeaways work for all levels of players—try them out. See you on the courts!”
