“You’re gonna wanna be here!”That was the word coming out of Cleveland going into this year’s National Championship, and after the fact it’s hard to argue differently. If you weren’t there, you should have been.

After an absence of more than a decade, the Cleveland paddle world stepped up to the plate and delivered a national title tournament to remember – impeccably organized, offering a spectacular Saturday night party and oh, by the way, some unbelievable paddle.

Both the Men’s and Women’s draws delivered on the promise of tremendous play inside the cages, as well as the answer to some intriguing questions surrounding the game’s best players.

Can anyone beat David Ohlmuller and Chris Gambino? That had to be the question on the minds of many entering this year’s National Championship, as the defending champs entered the tournament having dominated the paddle scene the past two seasons. Then, when Mike Stulac [2003 finalist with Bill Anderson became a last minute scratch due toairport fog, one had to wonder if there was a team left in the draw who could unseat the East Coast tandem. Well now we have an answer, and that answer is yes.

Flip Goodspeed and Scott Mansager captured yet another national championship after a magical 3-set final that took away the breath of all that had the pleasure to watch, as well as some of the players on the court.

“I’m numb,” said Goodspeed right after the match. “I’m not sure how that [his finals victory] happened. What an unbelievable match.”

After the first set, it would not have been a stretch to say that the likelihood of another Goodspeed/Mansager championship was improbable. Gambino and
Ohlmuller, behind 20 minutes of flawless paddle, cruised through the first set, 6-1. In addition to the great play of the defending champs, however, the first set was marked by some inconsistent play by Goodspeed. A handful of loose shots was all Gambino and Ohlmuller needed to close out the first set and start off the second with all the confidence of a team that had yet to lose a set in the last two national championships.

If Goodspeed’s play had been somewhat sub-par going into the second set, however, that didn’t last long. Not only did he cease to make unforced errors, but he began to assert his will over the match with his uncanny speed and quick hands. That, and of course nearly flawless play and monster forehands by Mansager. Mansager and Goodspeed grabbed an early break in the second set and battled to make it stand up, which they did closing out the second set, 6-4, on a disputed service-line call.

If spectators were pleased with the quality of the first two sets, they were in for a real treat entering the third. Long points, mammoth ground-strokes and lightning quick hands set the tone for the set. Not wanting to see any more of Gambino’s forehand than was absolutely necessary, much of the play when Goodspeed and Mansager were at net focused on Ohlmuller’s ad-court. Ohlmuller played strong, making his opponents pay dearly at times, but Goodspeed and Mansager took over the net with a ferociousness not common to many players on the circuit, if any. Unforced errors virtually disappeared. Positioning holes would momentarily appear, only to be closed a split second later. And even rocket-like ground-strokes suddenly became fodder for pillow-soft drop shots.

“You have to play those guys like that,” Goodspeed said about his team’s net play. “Otherwise they’ll eat you alive up there.” When the third set ended, 6-3, Goodspeed and Mansager had finished off an awesome performance, and put the finishing touches on a terrific men’s draw.

Was last year’s national championship title by Mary Doten and Susie Keane a fluke? After taking last year’s championship title by storm, cruising through the draw as an unseeded dynamo, Doten and Keane entered this year’s draw eager to show that last year’s result was no one-time shot. Furthermore, unlike last year, this year’s draw contained Sue Aery and Gerri Viant, winners of eight national titles since 1990.

Returning after a one-year “retirement,” the presence of the unseeded Aery and Viant in this year’s draw presented a formidable challenge for more than just the defending champions. In fact, because of their unseeded status, the draw set up for them to meet the number one seeded team of Hilary Debbs and Patti Hogan in the quarter-finals. That turned out to be an unfortunate draw for the top seeds, as they fell to what has to be the best unseeded team ever to step inside the cages, 6-1. 6-1.

That set up a final that would see last year’s champ test their game against perhaps the best women’s team ever. Coming into the final match, each team was playing well, losing just one set throughout the deep women’s draw. The veteran team played well, but in the end Doten and Keane were too tough to handle. The defending champs won the final, 6-3, 6-4, proving once and for all that they are a team to be reckoned with in the years to come.

Off the court, this year’s nationals was a tremendous affair. Tournament Director Brian McCreary and his committee put together a well-oiled machine, that saw the entire draw run smoothly.”This was so much fun to be a part of,” McCreary said. “I’d like to do it all over again next year.”

Well that may be tough, as the tournament is booked up for the next nine years. But Cleveland certainly showed to the paddle community at large that paddle is alive and well in northeast Ohio, and that a decade away from Cleveland was a decade too long. Now the paddle world turns its attention to Pittsburgh, the site of next year’s national championship. If that tournament is anything like this year’s, it too will be an event you don’t want to miss.

Source: Platform Tennis Magazine, Vol. 5, Issue 5, April, 2004

One hundred and eleven men’s teams negotiated their way to Philadelphia to compete for the prestigious, year-end, National Platform Tennis Championships, March 8th and 9th. When the dust cleared on Sunday afternoon, the defending National Champions, Scott Mansager and Flip Goodspeed had been upset in the semifinals by Mike Stulac and Bill Anderson. Stulac and Anderson were then defeated by David Ohlmuller and Chris Gambino in two hard-fought sets in the finals. For Ohlmuller and Gambino, the victory was especially sweet as they recaptured the National Championship from two years ago.

“We had a great year, capped off by an amazing Nationals,” said David Ohlmuller. “The tournament was first class all the way. The atmosphere made it feel like the US Open,” exclaimed the three-time National Champ.

With Mother Nature cooperating and providing partly sunny skies and temperatures in the 40’s, the tournament played out according to seed, with seven of the top eight seeds reaching the quarterfinal round and the top four seeds reaching the semis. Stulac/Anderson, playing their first season together, finished a tremendously successful year. They defeated Rusty Wright and Chris Cochrane in the round of 16, Jim Kaufman and John Milbank in the quarters and the defending champs, Mansager/Goodspeed in a tight two set match in the semi’s, 6- 3, 7-6 (2).

The road to the final for Ohlmuller and Gambino was equally difficult as they defeated John Schmitt and Mike Cochrane (the two fisted whirling dervish from NY) in the quarterfinals and Scott Estes and Scott Mackesy in the semi’s.

The finals was a test of patience as momentum swung back and forth in the first set, shifting to the ultimate winners when Gambino held serve at 3-3, in a 20 minute service game, that lead to a 6-3 first set victory. In the second set, the break points and momentum stayed with Ohlmuller and Gambino, as their confidence grew. Unforced errors were practically nonexistent as the champs played a near flawless second set.

David Kjeldsen, owner of Viking Athletics stated, “As both a friend and employer, watching David play tournaments for 23 years and never have I seen him as focused as he has been over the past 12 months. This season, David and Chris won, among others, the Nationals, the Chicago Charities, the Sound Shore Invitational, and Short Hills. In 30 matches, they were undefeated. In fact, they only dropped one set all season(Hough/Uihlein in the Chicago Semi-finals)! I doubt that anyone will ever duplicate that record.”

Just as the Men’s Nationals had their excitement, the women had their own. It would have been hard to imagine an unseeded team breaking the normally very consistent ranks of the women’s tour; however, the unseeded Chicago team of Mary Doten and Susie Keane did just that.

On March 7, 2003, 128 women came out to compete for the right to be called the best in the country. With the absence of the two strongest women’s ad-court players (and 2002 National Finalists) Sue Aery and Lauren Zink, the Women’s Nationals was ripe for the picking.

The top seeds were led by (1) Bobo Delaney & Tonia Mangan, (2) Kerri Delmonico & Shelley Morse, (3) Sally Cottingham & Chris Sheldon, and (4) Hilary Debbs & Patty Hogan. They all advanced to the quarterfinals where Mary Doten & Susie Keane defeated the 3rd-seeded Cottingham and Sheldon (five-months pregnant). In the previous round, Doten and Keane upset the 5thseeded team of Robin Fulton and Cindy Prendergast.

Advancing to the first semi-final, Delaney & Mangan matched up against Debbs & Hogan. In the other, Doten & Keane played Delmonico & Morse. In two fantastic, crowd-packed performances, Debbs & Hogan and Doten & Keane were victorious. The finals were set.

After knocking off the 5th, 3rd, and 2nd seeds, did Doten and Keane have the experience to triumph in the finals against veteran 1999 National Open Champion Patty Hogan and her partner Hilary Debbs? For Keane, a former 27th world-ranked women’s tennis star, this was only her third platform tennis tournament. Her mental toughness was certainly not to be questioned.

8alancing a powerful offense with a consistent defense, Doten and Keane pulled away with a straight set victory and earned the right to be called The Best of 2003.

Source: Platform Tennis Magazine, Vol. 4, Issue 5, May 2003

The Long Island Platform Tennis Association, Chaired by Charles Vasoll, hosted the 2002 Men’s and Women’s Open National Championships from March 8-10. The weather was a comfortable 65 degrees; however, occasional wind gusts up to 30 miles per hour were not uncommon. One thing was for sure, a wind of change was in the air.

Going into the Men’s Round-of-16, no major upsets occurred. But everyone knows that anything can happen in the Nationals. The 16’s saw two upsets: Mike Cochrane-Martin Sturgess (12) def. Brian Uihlein-John Hough (4) and Mike Marino-Chris Williams (10) def. Scott Estes-Scott Mackesy (2). With the gates opened up. Mike Gillespie-Bob Conklin (6), the highest remaining seeded team in their half of the draw, advanced past Marino- Williams in the quarter-finals and over John Milbank and Jim Kaufman (8) in the semi-finals (Milbank-Kaufman advanced over Sturgess-Cochrane in the quarters).

On the other half of the draw, five-time National Champions Scott Mansager-Flip Goodspeed (3) advanced past Andy Todd-Joe Leytze in the 16’s, and then defeated Scott Bondurant-Greg Stipa (7) in the quarterfinals. In addition, the top-seeded defending champs, David Ohlmuller and Chris Gambino earned their semifinal spot by overcoming Fritz Odenbach-Mike Stulac in the 16’s and Anthony Cosimano-Steve Haller (5) in a 7-6 third set quarterfinal tiebreaker.

The Sunday morning semi-finals were spectacular. The first event was a rematch of the 2001 National Finals. This time, however, Goodspeed and Mansager were out for revenge – earning a straight-set 6-4, 6-3 victory over Gambino-Ohlmuller. In the other semi, the sixth-seeds triumphed over the eighth-seeds.
The finals was an emotional experience for many as Goodspeed and Mansager took back their former crown in a 6-4, 6-3 win over Gillespie and Conklin. Along with the title, Flip and Scott earned enough points to catapult them up as the #1-Ranked team in the country for the first time in four years.

Historically, women’s platform tennis has been a little more predictable than the men’s. Up until the National Women’s Open quarterfinals, where the top eight seeded teams advanced, this was again the case.

In the quarter’s, the big upset occurred when up-and-coming stars Lauren Zink and Julie Dodd (6) defeated veterans Robin Fulton and Cindy Prendergast (2) 6-3, 6-3. On the other half of the draw, Patty Hogan and Sandra Krusos (8) won 6-4, 6-2 over Hilary Debbs and Kerri Delmonico(4). Having just paired up, the APTA abided by their rules of tournament placement and could not seed Hogan and Krusos higher than eight.

In the semi-finals, Dodd-Zink pulled off another amazing victory, defeating Bobo Delaney and Tonia Mangan (3) 6-3, 6- 3. In the other semi, defending champions Sue Aery and Gerri Viant defeated Hogan-Krusos 6-1, 7-5. The stage was set for the top-ranked veterans to play the sixth-seeded challengers.

A two-hour battle raged on in view of 400+ spectators as Aery and Viant pulled out the victory as an un-returnable let serve dribbled over the net on an ad-in match point. In the end, the champions showed why they are the best and the challengers showed why one day they could be.

Source:Platform Tennis Magazine Volume 3, Issue 5, May, 2002

Marc Duvin covered the Men’s and Women’s Nationals for PTM:

In the middle of the second set of his National Championship semi-final match, Scott Mansager shot a perplexed look at his partner. Flip Goodspeed. For the second time in three successive points Goodspeed had dumped a ball into the backhand of opponent Mike Stulac, who promptly did what he usually does when he gets a good look at a backhand – ripped a winner. Up a set, but down a break, Goodspeed and Mansager were within shouting distance of a fifth consecutive National Championship Final, a feat never before accomplished in the sport. But Stulac, with his backhand and stunning quickness at the net, was beginning to take over the match.

“That ball can’t go there. Flip. You know better than that,” Mansager chided his partner. “Be smart.”

As if the disgusted look on his face wasn’t telling enough, Goodspeed’s play during the remainder of the match proved that he in fact did know better It would be several games before Stulac got a good look at a backhand. In fact, that errant Goodspeed shot was just about the last good look Stulac goat at any ball, as Goodspeed and Mansager proceeded to dump almost evert shot on which they had a choice into the corner of Stulac’s partner (also the Rochester tournament’s gracious host) Fritz Odenbach. With Stulac watching from the ad-court, his lethal backhand and dominating quickness silenced, Goodspeed and Mansager closed the match in straight sets.

Apparently a team tends to pick up a few things about the strategy of the game on its way to five consecutive National Championship titles.

Goodspeed and Mansager closed out their record-fifth straight National Championship by going on to beat the #1 ranked and top seeded team of Chris Gambino and David Ohimuller by a score of 6-4, 7-5(7-5). In the first game of the match Gambino was serving, forty-love, and got broke. Goodspeed and Mansager rode that break through the first set, and then closed out a see-saw tie breaker in the
second.

“It was about as tight a match as you get,” said Mansager, who helped his team’s cause immensely by not serving up a single fault during the final day of the tournament. “There was probably only a difference of about two points either way the entire match. That was an incredible way to end the season,” he added, “especially since we were able to beat out the hottest team of the year. We didn’t do as well as we wanted in the big tournaments this year, so to be able to win like that felt really good.”

History was also made on the women’s side of the draw, as Gerri Viant and Sue Aery cruised to an easy finals victory over the defending National Champions, Patty Hogan and Cindy Prendergast. The 6-2, 6-1 victory not only avenged last year’s finals loss, but also represented a women’s record-sixth National Championship title.

Hogan and Prendergast fought hard to defend their title, even knocking off the top-seeded team of Robin Fulton and Sarah Krieger in a tough semi-final match. But in the end, Viant and Aery proved to be too dominant. The veteran team closed out the tournament without losing a single set!

As has become his trademark, Fritz Odenbach hosted what can only be described as an immensely successful and enjoyable tournament. Fritz, his wife Vicki, and the rest ofthe Rochester staff saw to it that all involved were warmly treated, well informed, and over-fed. “I wish it would have ended a little differently, but I think it was a great weekend,” Fritz said shortly after his semi-final loss. “It was a long year of planning. And I’m glad it’s over.”

As for the action on the court, it is perhaps only fitting that the two teams that dominated the National Championship stage during the final decade of the 20th century opened the new century with victories. In a game where big matches, even entire tournaments, routinely come down to a handful of individual points, it defies the odds that a single team would consistently win those precious points year-in and year-out. But that’s just what Mansager/Goodspeed and Viant/Aery have done.

“I’m a bit surprised,” Mansager said of the fifth-straight title. He added, “to think that we’ve been able to come out on the right side of so many tough matches is a little difficult to fathom. But, next year’s another year, and there’s a lot of good teams out there. All it would take would be for one of those teams to get hot, or to learn to play a little better, and that would be the end of our streak. But Flip and I are going to work hard to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

Source: Platform Tennis Magazine, Issue 5, May, 2000

The Canoebrook Club in Summit, New Jersey was the host club for the 2001 Men’s and Women’s Open Nationals. From Phoenix to Maine and everywhere in between, 192 men and 128 women converged for three days of the best competition platform tennis has to offer.

The five-time defending men’s champions, Michigan’s Flip Goodspeed and Scott Mansager, were once again the odds on favorites even through they were the #2-ranked team in the country. The Jersey boys, David Ohlmuller and Chris Gambino, were seeded #2 and expected to push for their first team championship. The big question in their minds was whether or not Chris Gambino’s knees would hold up to the challenge.

New Yorkers, Scott Estes and Scott Mackesy showed up at Canoebrook as the #3 seeds. Coming off their big win in Short Hills, anything would be possible in the Nationals. The other New Jersey duo, Anthony Cosimano and Steve Haller, was also up on the idea of a first National finals appearance. Consistency in all of the major events gave them the #4-seed slot.

Rounding off the five to eight seed slots were Baird/Milbank, Anderson/Poe, Bondurant/Fiedler, and Conklin/Zink.

The eight top seeds advanced to the round of sixteen, however, only six moved on to the quarter-finals. Marino/Williams from Chicago defeated Baird and Milbank (NJ) 7-5, 6-1 and Cochrane/Kaufman (NY) were victorious over Chicago’s Bondurant/Fiedler.

The semi-finals matched the top four seeds against each other, something rare in a Men’s National event. Gambino/Ohlmuller moved past Estes/Mackesy in two convincing sets. Goodspeed/Mansager advanced past Cosimano/Haller, but not without dropping a set along the way. The 2000 finalists were set to face off against each other again in 2001. On the line was Mansager/Goodspeed’s record five-consecutive National titles.

March 24th has to be a special day for Ohlmuller and Gambino. They won in the finals by a score of 6-2, 6-2, showing why they are the #1-ranked team in the country – by not missing. Goodspeed and Mansager, on the other hand, were unusually human. In the end, Gambino and Ohlmuller earned their first Men’s Open team title (David’s second) by winning twelve straight sets at Canoebrook.

On March 23rd, platform tennis’ 64 best women’s teams arrived in Summit to compete for the 2001 Women’s Open title. First and fourth seeds Sue Aery / Gerri Viant and Patty Hogan / Cindy Prendergast were the final favorites, having faced off against each other here numerous times before. Second and third seeds, Bobo Delaney / Tonia Mangan and Robin Fulton / Sarah Krieger had outstanding seasons, earning enough points to qualify for their draw placements.

The five to eight seeds were Delmonico/Morse, Debbs/McNitt, Noyes/Penney, and Cash/Newsome. Like the Men’s event, the seeds held their place into the round of 16 without upset. In the sixteens, the upsets were Lovejoy/Shaw over Cash/Newsome, Dodd/Zink over Delmonico/Morse, and Burkhart/ Heidenberger over Noyes/Penney.

Then came the quarter-final match-up everyone was waiting for: Zink/Dodd vs. Hogan/Prendergast. As anticipated, this match lived up to the hype, with newcomer Lauren Zink receiving her first-ever tournament loss to the six-time National finalists in a 6- 3 third-set loss. The remaining top seeds held their places in straight sets to advance into the semi-finals. They were Fulton/Krieger over Lovejoy/Shaw, Aery/Viant over Debbs/McNitt, and Delaney/Mangan over Burkhart/ Heidenberger.

Hogan and Prendergast had their hands full again in the semi-finals with another ‘6-3 in the third’ win over Delaney and Mangan. On the other side of the draw, Aery / Viant defeated Fulton / Krieger 6-4, 7-5, setting up a much-anticipated finals rematch.

A capacity crowd of several hundred packed in to fill the four sets of bleachers, as well as the preferred seating offered in the “luxury tent.” It was cool and partly cloudy; perfect weather for platform tennis. The final match was a repeat of the previous season where Aery and Viant balanced consistency with well-focused attacks. This year, the score came down to 6- 2, 6-4, giving them their second consecutive National Championship.

Source: Platform Tennis Magazine, Vol. 2, Issue 5, May 2001