Welcome to ECTC!
Volunteer Coaches Needed for the 10 and Under Program
The USTA's "10 and Under" junior tennis program in El Cerrito is looking for volunteers to help out with coaching. It'll be a seven-week program starting around March 19 working with 6-to-10-year-olds.
All volunteer coaches will be trained by a USTA certified professional, so you don't need prior experience. Equipment is provided, and each team will have a coach and an assistant coach. The practices will be scheduled so that coaches will only need to spend 1 hour during the week and 2 hours on Sunday afternoons.
If you are interested, know someone who is interested, or would like more information, please contact Margo Takemiya at (510) 524-3255 (h) or (510) 987-0393 (w).
Download the flyer. (In some browsers, you might have to click the Reload button after you click this link.)
10 and Under Tennis Coming Soon
The 2012 Spring session of "10 and Under" Junior tennis (formerly QuickStart) in El Cerrito will be held this year March 26 – May 20.
Registration will take place February 1 – 29. The program consists of 1 hour/week practices during after-school hours anywhere from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. and 1 1/2 hours on Sunday afternoon for matches. The cost of the program is $85/child, which will pay for membership in the USTA, a t-shirt, awards, and a potluck at the season's end. Practice times/dates have not been finalized at this time, but we ask that you specify the day/time you would prefer on the registration form. If the finalized times do not fit into your schedule, your registration form/money will be returned to you.
Beginning February 1, 2012, applications can be either dropped off at the El Cerrito Community Center, 7007 Moeser Lane, or sent to 821 Shevlin Drive, El Cerrito, CA 94530.
The first 10 first-time registrants will receive a free racket.
Download the flyer and registration form. (In some browsers, you might have to click the Reload button after you click this link.)
A Happy Tennis New Year's Day
Upwards of 35 players showed up on a beautiful, sunny Sunday morning to start 2012 off properly — with tennis!
In between the four-game, no-ad doubles matches, participants enjoyed coffee, bagels, cinnamon buns, juice, and sparkling wine. Play continued until well after 1:00.
In the brief annual meeting of the club, the membership approved the board of directors for 2012.
See photos at this Picasa Web Album.
Take the Montclair Bus to the SAP Open
The Montclair Tennis Association has invited ECTC members to join them on their annual bus trip to the SAP Open ATP Tour men's tournament on February 18 at the HP Pavilion in San Jose. This will be the evening session on semifinals day. The price of $56.50 includes transportation and a seat in the front of Section 206. The Montclair tradition is to bring finger food and drinks to share during the ride. Interested folks can sign up on the Montclair website.
NEW from the El Cerrito Tennis Club! A Thursday Evening Drop-in Round Robin, 6:30 – 8:30 p.m. at the Cerrito Vista courts.
Join us every Thursday evening from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. for a drop-in round robin at the Cerrito Vista courts.
And keep coming back! Courts have been reserved through the end of 2011!
It's a casual drop-in round robin and open to all (you don't need to be an ECTC member, though we'd love you to join).
In Memoriam: Henryk Kramek
On December 2, 2011, with the passing of Henryk Kramek, the El Cerrito tennis community lost a longtime friend, a perennial and respected USTA team captain, a popular teammate, and a true gentleman. For at least the last 15 years, Henryk was an active member of the Hackers, an avid USTA league player, and, for more than a decade, captain of many El Cerrito USTA teams. The success of the current Arlington Men's Combo 7.5 team is a fitting testament to his captaining skills.
We regret that he has played his last tennis, and we will miss him on the courts, but we trust he will be long remembered for his many contributions to tennis in El Cerrito. The El Cerrito Tennis Club joins the Hackers and the El Cerrito tennis community in mourning his passing, and we offer our deepest condolences to his wife, Leslie Fuller.
Henryk Kramek: a Personal Remembrance
I always looked up to Henryk. He was taller than me.
Seriously, though, he was selfless in repeatedly taking on the job of USTA team captain. Without him, we local tennis players would have had little opportunity to play in an organized league. The demands of a team captain are endless; I call it a job, but Henryk never considered it work. His constancy was exemplary: he was there for his teams for virtually every practice and every match, whether he was in the lineup or not, and only recently, with his illness, did he cut back on his attendance.
Henryk had an unerring sense of the game of tennis. He had an eagle eye for the small details in your strokes, noticing what you might be doing wrong, and his observations were insightful and valuable. At matches he was a keen observer of the bigger picture, and invariably his tactical tips could maintain our momentum if we were ahead or turn the tide in our favor if we were not.
He had a wonderful, self-deprecating sense of humor, so perhaps he would have appreciated my opening line. He sometimes called himself a graduate of the "Tin Man School of Tennis," comparing his court movement to the rusted-out character from The Wizard of Oz. If he served the opening game of a set, he would announce, "love, love, all you need is love!" And when team practices sometimes turned slapstick, we were awarded his approval rating of "better than Saturday morning cartoons."
I never saw Henryk get angry. He was a gentleman of equanimity, fairness, and integrity; a paragon of good sportsmanship. Occasionally he would send an e-mail asking someone to serve as "capitan du jour" for a match, or to cover the "capitan's" duties for him. I always wondered if the misspelling was intentional, but eventually I came to think of him as "El Capitan," and he will occupy a place in my memory as solid, prominent, and immutable as that mountain. So I will continue to look up to him; he'll always be taller than me.
— Anonymous
Two Reports from US Open 2011
In the summer of 2011, the club auctioned off two pairs of US Open tickets donated by the USTA in recognition for our participation in the QuickStart program. The winners were Margo Takemiya and Lynn Tsumoto, shown below with Fred Takemiya. Here are their stories.
For a recreational player member of the USTA who plays on public courts maintained by a municipal government and our local tennis club, attending the US Open as guest in the President's Suite was an extraordinary experience. I've watched all the Grand Slams for years on TV, including the US Open when it was at Forest Hills. I had dreamed of going to one "someday," and suddenly it happened! More...
Let's see, which bathroom would you use? The one where you'd have to stand in the hot sun in the line out the door and around the corner of the building? With the empty towel dispenser, suspicious liquid on the floor, a crowd of sweating men shuffling toward the door?
Or the air-conditioned one with marble counters, quality towels, my choice of hand lotion, face lotion, sunscreen . . . mouthwash? More...
2011 Mixed Doubles Tournament a Big Hit
On Sunday, September 18, the club's annual mixed doubles tournament hosted team play at the Arlington, Cerrito Vista, and Castro courts. Eight 6.5 teams and twice that number of 7.5 teams enjoyed great competition, convivial company, and a delicious picnic lunch as well as some of the best weather of the year.
Taking first place in the 6.5 division were Liz Holland and Vinnie Bui. Second place went to Anh Bui and and Ray Saturno. The 7.5 winners were Jan Wilkins and Dave Gerstel, who beat Kora Cypress and Gary Wong in the tiebreak of the playoff match.
See video and photos at this Picasa Web Album.
From Your President
Happy New Year to all! I am happy and honored to be taking over as president of the El Cerrito Tennis Club … I know that 2011 will be a great year of tennis! I'd like to thank Margo Takemiya for her excellent stewardship of the Club these last two years. I'd also like to acknowledge and thank Fred Takemiya and Dick Bascom, who both retired from the ECTC Board, for their contributions, involvement, and commitment to the Club and tennis. And please welcome our new board member Charlotte Moon. Click here to see a list of all our Board members.
As we do every year, the Club will sponsor the BALL and USTA teams in El Cerrito with a stipend to help with the cost of court reservations, represent the interests of our tennis community with the City of El Cerrito, host three events (July BBQ Round Robin, Fall Mixed Doubles Tournament, Red Eye New Year's Day Round Robin), and in its second year, coordinate and sponsor the QuickStart Junior League. More...
The Club Goes Green
El Cerrito Tennis Club supports our tennis teams in "going green."
We're asking our team captains to reduce the use of bottled water during home matches. ECTC has purchased a big Coleman container for this purpose and is encouraging the team captains to request the visiting teams to bring their own water containers to fill as needed. More...