Susie Dunn and Susie Welker

Never a dull moment on the Cottonwood Tennis courts especially now that our club activities are in full swing for the winter season. To kick off the new tennis season, our 10th annual Cottonwood Rainbow Classic was held on October 10 11. The fun part of this tournament is that when we sign up we don’t know who our partners will be or which team we will be on until they are posted on the tennis board. Al Wagner was the director of this tournament. He named the two teams the Wildcats and the Sun Devils. Therefore, if you’re on the Wildcats team you wear red or blue shirts and if you’re on the Sun Devils team you wear yellow or maroon. Thus the colors in the rainbow! After some spirited and close matches the Sun Devils came out ahead in matches won.

Also in October, our first kickoff dinner meeting was held at Palo Verde on October 22. This was hosted by Denise Devereaux who planned a lovely dinner that was served on the patio! There always is a large response to this dinner meeting because everyone wants to get together again after the long hot summer.

Cottonwood’s famous and always anticipated tournament is the Bradshaw Tennis Tournament. This will be the 30th Bradshaw that will be in progress as this issue goes to print. It will take place from November 2-8. This tournament was named in honor of Dr. Ken Bradshaw, the first President of the Cottonwood Tennis Club in 1985. It is open to all Sun Lakes and SunBird residents. The 2014 committee is chaired by Jack Sanders and Don Neu as scheduler, Larry Sundsrud, Hal Davis, Jack Szatkowski and John Cousins also had a hand in the many preparations. All profits from the Bradshaw are donated to a local charity. The winners and finalists will be posted in the next month’s Splash issue.

As mentioned in last month’s issue, the Men’s Summer League came to an end after 25 weeks of play. Their party was held on October 2 and the top winners were:

Red Division: 1st Bill Gosiak, 2nd Al Wagner

Green Division: 1st Jack Peterson, 2nd Pierre Moresi

Blue Division: 1st Spenser Roberts, 2nd Dag Drudem

Congratulations to you all for a very successful summer league!

There will be two other tournaments held in November besides the Bradshaw. On November 1 is the SLCC at Cottonwood and Cottonwood at SunBird. And on November 22, Cottonwood at Leisure World.

Tip for the month: If any tennis player is wondering what to do with their used tennis balls, there are two red containers at Cottonwood by the fifth and second courts.

Also at Palo Verde, there is a container. Some of these balls are used in our ball machines and others are given to be used on walkers.

Please visit our fabulous website at www.cottonwoodtennisclub.com for complete information about our tennis club. You will enjoy all our photos there also.