As the weekend came to an end, two new USTA League Champions were crowned at the National Adult 5.0+ Championships, hosted at the USTA National Campus. The Texas women and Intermountain men squads emerged victorious after three days of intense match play. 

 

The women’s semifinals kicked off with Missouri Valley and Mid-Atlantic playing for a finals spot, where Missouri Valley proved their doubles dominance. Their two team wins came from the teams of Lina Wollmershauser and Chelsea Tucker, 6-1, 6-0, along with Jennifer Lin Howard and Tiffany Miller, 6-4, 6-3, catapulting their team into the championship match.

 

The other semifinal saw Texas and Southern vying for the other spot. Audrey Wooland picked up a 6-1, 6-1 singles win, plus teammates Jo Schneeweiss-Keene and Paloma Escobedo followed with a three set match decided by a tiebreak, emerging victorious, 4-6, 6-4, 1-0.

 

The women’s final came down to the last match, with Texas earning the National Champion title with a 2-1 team victory. Texas’s Wooland repeated her semifinal success with a 6-2, 6-2 win. Missouri Valley responded with a 6-1, 6-1 victory from Wollmershauser and Milner. The deciding court swung in the favor of Texas, where Schneeweiss-Keene and Escobedo dominated, 6-3, 6-0 to help their team capture the title.

 

The Houston based team brings the National Championship back to Texas for the first time since 2013, where Texas defeated Southwest with a 2-1 victory. 

 

In the men’s draw, Mid-Atlantic and Southern kicked off their semifinal with some tight encounters.  Southern’s Salif Kante and Mid-Atlantic’s Aleksandr Seleznev went to a three-set tiebreak, where Kante ultimately picked up the win, 6-3, 3-6, 1-0. The first doubles match went to a first set tiebreak won by the Southern duo of Kevin Ye and Yauheni Silitski. The pair also won the second set 6-4, punching their team’s ticket to the finals. This marked the fourth straight year a USTA Southern team advanced to the championship round.

 

Intermountain and Texas continued the dramatic duals of the day in the second semifinal. Intermountain’s Jeffrey Loehr captured the first singles set, 6-3, and then battled Texas’s Zoltan Papp to come up victorious, 7-6 in the second set.  Texas countered the momentum with Leif Meineke and Sascha Kiehne gaining the first doubles win, 6-3, 6-4. However, Intermountain remained determined to reach the finals, as the team of Julian Seelan and Jerad Harbaugh defeated Joseph Hattrup and Daniel Vejman 6-4, 6-4.  

 

The Intermountain versus Southern championship showdown was a repeat of the 2015 National Championships, where Intermountain left the titleholders after a 2-1 victory. And, in a state with unpredictable weather, lightning did strike twice, with Intermountain securing the singles court 6-1, 6-3 and the second doubles matchup, 6-4, 6-4.. The Denver based squad departed the National Campus with their second title in three years, dominating on their path to the title.

 

Complete results from the 2017 USTA League National Adult 5.0+ Championships women's divison can be found here, and the men's results here.

 

Established in 1980, USTA League has grown from 13,000 players in a few parts of the country in its first year to more than 900,000 players across the nationtoday, making it the world’s largest recreational tennis league.

USTA League was established to provide adult recreational players throughout the country with the opportunity to compete against players of similar ability levels. Players participate on teams in a league format, which is administered by the USTA through its 17 sections. The league groups players by using six National Tennis Rating Program (NTRP) levels, ranging from 2.5 (entry) to 5.0 (advanced). USTA League is open to any USTA member 18 years of age or older.