Mardi Gras in Cloudcroft

Mark your calendars to go to Cloudcroft for the Mardi Gras celebration. Click the image to enlarge it.

ATA 4.0 Team Wins Battle of the Clubs!

Thank you to Cindy for posting this picture on Facebook!

Congratulations to Cameron, Darryl, Dennis, Cindy, Gail, Lois and Joy for their Battle of the Clubs victory. They were undefeated in 4.0 team action and took home wine glass trophies.

Making a "Let" Call

Here are some word of wisdom from the USTA site about calling a "let."

If you have no chance for a ball and a ball rolling onto the court would have made no difference, do the right thing -- give the point to your opponents.

One can always make a case that a player could have made some play on the ball when this happens. Technically, players may call a let if the point had not been completed when the hindrance of the stray ball from another court arrived. However, a good sport knows if they had a play or not, and a good sport knows the difference between a legitimate hindrance and taking advantage of a situation.

Battle of the Clubs

ATA will field three teams this year for the Battle of the Clubs, being held January 28-29 at New Mexico State University tennis courts.

Janet and Laurie will co-captain one 3.5 team, Dale will captain a second 3.5 team and Cameron will serve as captain of the 4.0 team.

NJTL Update

The ATA has received $1,000 to start a National Junior Tennis and Learning (NJTL) program in Alamogordo.

The purpose of NJTL is to introduce young people to the sport of tennis and also to build character and academic skills. For more information about NJTL, read the previous post that describes the program in detail.

Cameron and Carl have agreed to provide coaching services for this program. Dale is providing academic instruction in writing and organizing a local essay writing contest. Word-of-mouth advertising has produced an overwhelming response of kids so at this time we are not recruiting any new participants.

February Play Day and Gumbo Afterwards!

Don't forget about our play day February 4th at 9:00 am. After the play day Pat and Nori have invited us to their home for gumbo. The gumbo dinner at the Morgan's house has become a tradition with the ATA. We look forward to some good tennis, good food and friendship!

Blog Post Notification

Since all of the information sent out in our monthly newsletter has already been posted on the blog (alamogordotennis.blogspot.com) we are planning to eliminate the newsletter.

When there is a new post on the blog, everyone on the ATA mailing list will receive a notification through their email. This note is a test of that system.