Despite the fact that most of the guests at a lovely welcoming reception last Friday evening on the veranda of the Windsor Club had only just met one another, the camaraderie was instantaneous, in large part due to their shared love of tennis.
“It’s all about community and celebrating,” said Joe Pappalardo, one of the organizers of last weekend’s 2017 Windsor Invitational Tennis Championship, USA vs. Great Britain. The matchup was an inaugural United States tournament for members of the Seniors’ Lawn Tennis Club of Great Britain.
The idea for the event was hatched by Duncan Riefler, a Windsor member who has lived in Wimbledon the past 10 years, where he is a member of the SLTC.
As Pappalardo remembers it, “We played tennis at Windsor and he said, ‘I would love to be able to invite my club to Windsor. Maybe we can begin an international series of tennis matches with seniors from the Treasure Coast.’ I said I would love for that to happen; it would be a great celebration of tennis in a venue that would be magical.”
“It was hard to orchestrate because it’s a great distance,” said Riefler, but they made it happen. “What I think is missing is there’s a big difference between the way senior tennis is organized in England vs. the U.S. We are a virtual club; we do not have tennis courts.”
Graham Neale, SLTC chairman, gave a brief history of the club, founded in 1958 as the Veterans’ Lawn Tennis Club of Great Britain by Dennis Coombe and Tom Todd, who later also founded the Wimbledon Museum. Membership, which currently stands at 376, is open to qualified men and women ages 35 and older. In addition to arranging national and international matches, the club’s objective is to “promote the playing of lawn tennis in its original spirit – for the love and enjoyment of the game alone.”
SLTC membership qualifications are stringent and include having played in the Championships at Wimbledon, having won an event at an Open tournament or having played for one’s country. Needless to say, the British team was a formidable one: Martin Cornish, Simon Curtis, Kyle Day, Graham Neale, Duncan Riefler, Wendy Riefler, Adrian Roberts, Alice Shimmin, Allan Thompson, Phil Tovey, Richard Wayman and Nick Williams.
Windsor resident Dan Cahill, Tom Fish, Windsor’s director of tennis and father to former top-ranked player Mardy Fish, and Pappalardo assembled a strong team of players on the Treasure Coast that included former college standouts and professional players to represent team USA: Dan Cahill, Peter Carr, Chase Donaldson, Jim Fichera, Lyle Grimm, Patrick Honey, Merilee Keller, John McConnell, Bill Meyer, Bob Milligan, Don Segalas and Kathy Zanon.
The congenial group enjoyed good-natured banter over cocktails and dinner, rehashing the Friday afternoon doubles matches while making humorous attempts to intimidate one another in advance of the Saturday Men’s Singles and Doubles Matches and the concluding Men’s Doubles on Sunday.
“I truly feel that tennis will not grow from million-dollar campaigns; tennis will grow from Main Street, local clubs like the Seniors’ Lawn Tennis Club of Great Britain, local coaches, local groups of kids in parks, and schools,” said Pappalardo. He is also a board member of the Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation, which offers year-round tennis lessons to kindergarten thru eighth-grade students in Indian River County through its Kids on Court program. Britain was a formidable opponent, winning nine Doubles to USA’s four and six Singles to USA’s two. No doubt wheels are already turning for a rematch.
