Champions Cup - Round 8 Results & Musings
June 27, 2006
By Jason Gilkey
Well, here I am, sitting around fielding phone calls demanding the excommunication of Captain Waldo and various members of his team, remembering the good old days when we actually had 6 singles matches every week. Week 8 did have some pretty good matches, as teams are starting to push for the best seeding for the tournament.

THINGS:
1. Jurassic Park took a HUGE hit with their spankings by Big Ballers. Will be interesting to see if that costs them the 2nd seed- it's too bad they don't play Say Hello again.

2. Speaking of Say Hello- their new official name- and I'm serious- we are changing it- is "TEAM BYE." That one is courtesy of another team captain.

3. Needless to say, TEAM BYE's actions this year are going to force a rule change for next year regarding team's eligibility for tournament. Captain Waldo can officially go back to player Waldo very soon. We've even had a few players ask if Waldo would pay for opponents league fees for all the non-matches. Crowd is getting a little unruly (unruly- great freaking word).

4. Did you see Jim Madrigal vs. Russell Buchi? I mean, the match was one for all the old-timers (never thought you'd hear me say that about Jim Madrigal did you)- it even brought Jim Shackleford out to watch. 

5. Speaking of Jim- teaching 8 hours a day outside is doing wonders for his farmer tan- take a look at that forehead and belly.

6. I got the honor of hitting with Houston Barrick a little- what is all the hype about? I mean, I got 5 points on him (just don't notice that it took me 30 tries). Nothing makes you feel better about yourself than seeing a serve you hit as hard as you can come back so deep that you have to half-volley. I did get one sweet old-man lob over him.

7. Okay- the clock is officially on for the Ryan Lipman-Jim Madrigal rematch next week. Will be HUGE. "White Bread" better not use the back excuse- he's playing an old guy who played for 5 colleges, has 3rd degree sunburns over his neck and arms, and has a Buddha belly.

8. Official "Match on the Dark Side of the Moon" Award. Next time everyone complains about the sucky lights here, just ask Craig Menzie, Matt Bulow, Devon Cundell, Mark Fentriss. Not only did they have terrible lights, they broke the net, switched courts to a court with 3 huge bumps, and then at 7-6 in third tie-break, had the lights turned off on them! Beautiful! And then had to go indoors to finish because it takes 30 minutes for our high powered lights to come back on.

9. Scott Snoyer/Ken Large versus Gary Witzgall/Mark Sutton/Stuart Speyer (after Speyer had to pull out)- I swear I saw Scott Snoyer yawn while hitting a return. I did enjoy seeing Gary hit Large a lob about 3 feet from the net. Result would probably have been the same if you had Witzgall, Sutton and Speyer all on the court at same time- more targets for overheads.

10. Greg Chambers- Mr. Service Return of the 80's and 90's- had a............shall we say............rough third set breaker? Had a very nice soft racket toss at the end after missing his 5th return. Cleared court fence and side exterior fence. 

11. Jason's highlight from the Week: Scott Fielding's cute-as-can-be daughter looking at me after Chamber's threw his racket and said "Why did he drop his racket?" To which I replied, "It slipped out of his hand." She looked at me like she was going to say "Yeah right, slipped out of his hand over 30 feet? You are a very stupid old man." I almost felt bad lying to a 4 year old. Almost.

12. Is it just me or are they running that stupid Maria Sharapova/tennis ball commercial every 5 minutes? 

13. I think Big Ballers have officially clinched (unless they go into TEAM BYE mode). And of course they get to play TEAM BYE this week, so they may attempt to quadruple TEAM BYE's score (right now it's 29 to 9).

14. Jim Jacobs and Fabian Campos' match was so inconsistent, they played a third set and still finished ahead of most of the matches.
Hey- I like it- it was 3 more sets than TEAM BYE has played in 4 weeks.

WEEK 8 RESULTS:
BIG BALLERS 4 JURASSIC PARK MINUS ONE 1
1. Jim Madrigal (Jurassic) def. Russell Buchi (Ballers) 6-2, 6-2 
2. Ballers win by default. 
1. Brandon Black/Cal Cook (Ballers) def. Greg Chambers/Fletcher Lance (Jurassic) 6-7, 6-2, 10-5
2. Scott Snoyer/Ken Large (Ballers) def. Gary Witzgall/Stuart Speyer/Mark Sutton (Jurassic) 6-2, 6-2 
3. Johnny Lu/Ray Blair (Ballers) def. Russ Lott/Scott Fielding (Jurassic) 6-3, 6-3

TENACITY 4 BUS BOYZ 1
1. Todd Smith (Tenacity) def. Michael Moretti (Boyz) 6-4, 2-1 ret. 
2. Jim Jacobs (Tenacity) def. Fabian Campos (Boyz) 2-6, 6-0, 6-1 
1. Devon Cundell/Mark Fentriss (Boyz) def. Matt Bulow/Craig Menzie (Tenacity) 5-7, 6-3, 10-8
2. Michael Polt/Robert McRae (Tenacity) def. Vince Brown/A.W. Speake (Boyz) 6-3, 6-3
3. Tenacity wins by default.

ALL-IN 5 TEAM BYE 0
1. Kearney Gay (All-In) def. David Rudd (Team Bye) 6-3, 6-3 All-In wins rest of matches by defaults. Exhibition Match: Jack Baker/Daniel Gifford (All-In) def. Mike Sparta/Kirk Seufert (Team Bye) 6-3, 6-2

MATCH OF THE WEEK: Devon Cundell/Mark Fentriss def. Matt Bulow/Craig Menzie 5-7, 6-3, 10-8 SINGLES PLAYER OF THE WEEK: Kearney Gay 
DOUBLES TEAM OF THE WEEK: Devon Cundell/Mark Fentriss 
TEAM OF THE WEEK: Big Ballers