Peachtree Paddle hosted its 10th Annual Invitational Tournament in Atlanta on February 20-22, '15. What a long way we've come!
In January of 2006, the first Annual Event had two volunteers, hosting 16 teams from 3 states, on our then 2 old rickety courts, with Peter Lauer & Jay Bailey (R) defeating John & Nick Gill (L) in the Finals.
Fast forward 10 years - the Invitational, now a National Ranking tournament, and the largest in Region 7 by far, had some 30 volunteers, hosting 69 teams from 15 states, which included 4 former Open champions, with a 25 team women's event on Friday followed by the Men's Friday night, Saturday and Sunday, played on now 10 courts across greater Atlanta. The women's champions (2nd time) were Agata Cioroch & Lisa Teer def Ewa Radzikowska and Freddy Goldenberg 0-6, 6-4, 6-2 on a snowy & festive evening at Cherokee Town Club.
On the Men's side, a crowd of some 100 spectators were treated to a spectacular 3rd set tiebreaker match, with Drew Broderick & Guy Moore (NJ) def hometown favorite Graham McNerney and his partner Guga Gonclaves (CT) 5-7, 6-2, 7-6. The result was made even cooler for Atlanta 2 weeks later when Drew went on to win the National Championship in Chicago! Who would have guessed 10 years ago that the then brand new Peachtree Invitational in Atlanta would be won by the current year's National Champ - my how happily far we've come.
And as is the tradition of the Peachtree Invitational, Saturday night's player, sponsor & volunteer party, hosted by Dan & Lisa Kennedy at their beautiful home in Buckhead, was a stunningly lovely affair, with some 150 guests and raised another $6k toward public platform tennis courts in Atlanta.
Mark your calendar now as dates are already set for the 11th Annual Peachtree Invitational tournament, February 19th - 21st, 2016. By then we expect to have 14 courts in Atlanta and plan to expand the (always oversubscribed draws) accordingly.