Sunrise Tennis Club Hosts First USTA Florida Regional Team Event of 2016

By: Stephanie Fonseca

This past week the USTA Florida Regional Team Tennis Challenge was held in Sunrise and crowned its first Champions of 2016.

Bringing in over 100 kids from all over Martin, Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami- Dade County, the co-ed  teams went head to head in the four available age groups. The Tennis Team Challenge series was kicked off in late April and had their first event in Sunrise which was hosted by the Sunrise Tennis Club.

The event had four age groups, the Under-10 Intermediate, 10/12U Green Ball, Under- 14 Intermediate, and Under-18 Intermediate.

In the Under-10 Intermediate, with the roster including Kara Borromeo (Captain) Ysabelle Bagayas, Kaitlyn Beaton, Kayla Carey, Katrina Hoechner, the Coral Reef Road Runners of Coral Reef Miami-Dade County got first place.

First place for the 10/12 Green Ball Division went to Broward’s very own Sunrise Ultra Grinders of the Sunrise Tennis Club. Justin DiMaio (Captain), Rolando Torrellas, Nicolas Evangelista, Ashton Streda, Aiden Guiles Mateo Quiroz, lead the team to the win against the finalist team of Palm Beach/ Martin County, the East Coast Aces.

The Under-14 finals was between Miami-Dade’s Ocean Club 12-14 Int and Palm Beach/ Martin County’s East Coast Strikers. But Ocean Club of Miami-Dade was crowned victorious.

And for the Under-18 age group the first place team came out of Coral Reef once again. The Coral Reef Crushers with Aleksa Andrejevic, Greggory Chase, Isidora Puelle, Natalie Rubio on their roster took the prize against the Coral Reef Attitudes.

With the USTA Junior Team Tennis program being re-launched, along with the USTA Florida Team Tennis Challenges for youth players starting up again in the new season, the programs estimated that they will get about 2,500 kids back on to the tennis courts this year.