Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Tennis - Bragging Rights

Bob Orr from Pekin and I won the Tri-County 75 Doubles a couple of weeks ago. Bob is 82 and I am 85. We also won it two years ago and have won numerous tournaments in Bloomington, Lansing, Mich., (Midwest Championship in 2000) Peoria and Danville. We plan to play again next year in the yearly Tri-County which drew about 180 entries in all age divisions.

It was my 5th 1at place Tri-County trophy to go with the approximately 250 tennis and track awards I have won since I started to compete again at the age of 55. My wife bought me a full size trophy case a few years ago. It was large enough to hold half of my trophy's. Even through I've played only 4 tournaments while serving 10 years on the Peoria County Board, I plan to play the Gran Prix Tournaments on the Gulf Coast starting in January. Some of the best senior players in the country and Canada play in these Grand Prix tournaments generally held in Naples, Sarasota, St. Petersburg and Ft. Meyers, moving from city to city through February with the finals of the best in early March.

3 comments:

John Feeney (Bluegil) said...

Congrats to both of you. Hopefully I'll still be playing in 30 years...nice example to follow..

Merle Widmer said...

Hey, John, thanks and where do you live. We oldtimers (and sometimes youngtimers) meet every Monday, Wednesday and Friday on the Clay Courts at Glen Oak Park in Peoria. We are fortunate to have 7 clays in a beutiful public park setting. It has been a battle with the PPD to keep them.

Best wishes and I hope you keep playing forever.

steven edward streight said...

That's truly astonishing. When my frozen shoulder fixes itself, I'll have to see what sport I can engage in, as I did like tennis and swimming as a youth, perhaps I can go beyond present limitations and ask for sky.