Irdoja/Powers and Cruz/Enica Take Top Honors at Paddleplayer.com

September 22, 2018
Wilton, CT

Saturday was a gorgeous day to kick off the paddle season in Fairfield County, and players were itching to get on the courts for the Paddleplayer.com Open Men’s and Women’s Viking PCQ and B tournament, which offered $10,000 in prize money for the PCQ players. The level of paddle at the Paddleplayer.com Open was every bit as dazzling as the weather, remarkable for so early on in the season.

The 12 team Women’s Open draw featured 10 of the top 20 players in the country, creating some compelling early round play. In the quarterfinals, Martina Ondrejkova and Kerri Delmonico needed three sets to dismiss Jade Curtis and Liz Jaffe, escaping with a 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 victory. In the semifinals, the top seeds, Cynthia Dardis and Amy Shay, dropped the first set 6-0 to Delmonico/Ondrejkova, but stormed back to a 0-6, 6-3, 6-2 win. In the other semifinal, Liz Cruz and Roxy Enica knocked out the second seeds, Florentina Hanisch and Annica van Starrenburg , 7-5, 6-2. Cruz and Enica kept up their excellent play throughout the final, beating Dardis/Shay, 6-4, 6-4 and taking the title without losing a set.

The Men’s Open draw featured an exciting array of new teams, with each of the top four seeds competing with different teammates than they played with last season. In one semifinal, Juan Arraya and Mark Parsons fell to Blake Anderson and Martin Bostrom, 6-3, 6-3. Mikk Irdoja and Marc Powers took out Sebastian Bredberg and Nathan Lefevre in two very tight sets in the other semifinal, posting a 7-5, 7-6 win. Irdoja and Powers looked like they were going to cruise to an easy win in the finals, but Anderson/Bostrom had other ideas. After winning the first set 6-1, Irdoja/Powers dropped the second set in a tiebreaker, but were able to regroup and win the third set in yet another tiebreaker, capping off a day of fantastic paddle for both the players and the fans.

In the Women’s B draw, Susan Macdonald and Rachel Reindeau narrowly escaped the first round, beating Karen Steinschneider and Sharon Sweeney, 7-6, 1-6, 7-5, before moving through the draw without the loss of another set. They defeated Grace Coale and Madeleine Wilson, 7-5, 6-2 in the finals. Matt Arciero and Craig Waddington won the Men’s B tournament, dropping a set in the quarterfinals to Christian Toft-Nielson and Chris Shay and another in their 4-6, 6-2, 6-2 final round victory over Michael Chen and Christian Toft.

Tournament Director Maurice Sanchez staged a fantastic event, with a BBQ and live music that kept fans lingering around the courts at The Lake Club all day long.