Boston’s T&R became the house of the rising stars over the weekend while hosting the Wharton Cup (handicaps 50 – 59) and Burke Cup (handicaps from 40 – 49). Wharton Cup players were allowed to “trade up” and also play in the Burke Cup. We had players come in from Newport and Washington to join lots of local Boston members. This years tournaments might be best described as showcases for most improved players. Lots of relatively new players, with only a couple of years experience entered the tournaments and they dominated it.
“Iron Man” Lucas Walsh started on Thursday evening and played 6 matches between the two tournaments to win the finalist trophies for both tournaments. He seemed to gain energy the more he played and he stayed strong to the end. Right down to the last game he was keeping his racket back, his knees bent, and was firing shots low and fast over the net.
Relative newcomer Bradley Ursprung started strong right out of the box and could not seem to miss the dedans. There were too just many service return forces to the dedans to count. Sometimes he chose the main wall, sometimes he went straight in, seems he likes to mix it up a bit. Bradley is so new that he wasn’t sure if a serve was good when it came off the roof and hit the line. A slight lack of knowledge in the rules did not stop him though and he just kept returning those balls with “nasty” stuff on them to win it all in the Wharton Cup.
Bill Connors, also relatively new, had to fight hard in the finals against Lucas Walsh. After losing the first set 2 – 6, you could see the change in attitude as he “got serious”. After that there were no more hits to the roof and he took the second two sets 6 – 0, 6 – 3 to snag himself the gold medal for the Burke Cup.
