BY MARIA PREKEGES
Sun Valley is a ski resort, right? Sure, snow sports, fishing, golf… and tennis.
Eight Wood River Valley women captured a national tennis title at the Surprise Tennis & Racquet Complex in Surprise, Ariz., Oct. 21-23. The United States Tennis Association (USTA) 2016 League National Championships for Adults (Women’s) 55 and Over (8.0) went to the Idaho/Sun Valley team consisting of co-captains Candy Ryan and Maria Parkhill, along with Britt Palmedo, Alma Campanale, Gayle Stevenson, Joanne Wetherell, Penny Brennan and Heidi Mickelson. The term 8.0 stands for the combined ratings of the players. The Sun Valley team consists of all 4.0 players.
Bill Van Deinse is the team’s coach. Team member Randy Caldwell played in Sectionals, but was unable to go to Arizona.
The team’s trip to the USTA Nationals began in Idaho Falls where they first won the District tournament. In late September, the team traveled to Denver to play the Sectionals.
In Denver, according to Heidi Mickelson, “We played Montana, Utah, Colorado, Nevada and Wyoming, and we won that tournament, which qualified us to play in the Nationals. We represented the Intermountain region, and there are 17 regions in the National Championships.”
Playing at this level and earning a national title takes an enormous amount of work.
“We practiced as a team once a week at the beginning of the season, then increased it to two times per week with our coach once we won Districts,” Mickelson said. “We continued working with our coach at least twice per week until we went to Nationals. We also played matches with each other a couple of times a week in addition to the practices with Bill. We all played a lot of tennis going in to Nationals, and it paid off for us.”
Such an accomplishment did not go unnoticed. Sun Valley Mayor Peter Hendricks proclaimed Nov. 4 the USTA League 55 & Over Women’s 8.0 National Champions Day and gave each of the team members a key to the City of Sun Valley after recognizing them during a city council meeting on Nov. 3.
“This has been very exciting for all of us and it truly took a few days for it to sink in,” Mickelson said. “For us, coming out of Sun Valley, to beat all of these teams from much larger metropolitan areas was really amazing. In truth, most of them play all year long, in many different leagues, while we play primarily during the summer, with a little bit of winter play. And we don’t have any other leagues to play in, like mixed doubles, so it’s rather awesome that we pulled it together to make this happen.”