Despite the considerable kidding he has taken about it, Brandon Deering insists it was no perk of being the Manker Patten Tennis Club president and tournament director that got him a playing partnership with Hayley Carter in the revived Chattanooga City Championships.
Carter, a former No. 1-ranked college player and NCAA singles finalist who ended her seven-time All-America career at North Carolina this spring, goes this week to Oklahoma State to begin work as an assistant coach. But today she will play for the city tournament's women's open singles and mixed open doubles titles, the latter with Deering.
Carter's family resides in Chattanooga now - some relatives already lived in the area - and she has worked quite a bit with Manker Patten general manager and director of tennis Ned Caswell.
"It was just a crazy thing," Deering said Saturday. "She's in town sporadically, and she was in here one day and I said, 'If you're in town, I wish you'd play in this tournament. And if you play with me in mixed I'll make sure you have a good time. I'm not the level of doubles partner you're used to, but I promise it will be stress-free.'
"She's a great girl and sweet as can be, and we're honored and feel privileged to have her here."
Top-seeded Carter and Deering won 6-2, 6-2 over Meg Bandy and Eric Voges in their semifinal, and teenaged siblings Kate and Charlie Thel pulled out a 2-6, 6-4, 10-6 win over No. 2 seeds Sue Webb and Jay Brooks to set up today's mixed open final at 3 p.m.
Nos. 1 and 2 seeds Carter and Drew Hawkins, fresh off a state high school championship for Baylor, each won 6-0, 6-0 in the women's open singles semifinals. The men's open top two seeds also will be playing at 9 a.m., but only after a harrowing post-semi experience for No. 2 Turner Voges and his opponent that kept both Voges and No. 1 Lucas Plesky from attempts to advance in doubles.
Soon after Voges finished his 6-4, 6-2 win over William Schneider, both required medical treatment. IVs were started on both at the club and continued at the hospital, but both recovered and Voges assured tournament officials that he would play this morning. But he was knocked out of doubles with his brother Saturday, and Schneider was Plesky's partner.
The ensuing quarterfinal walkovers went to the father-son team of Ray and Eric Roddy and the brother tandem of Daniel and Luke Plaisted, and both of those duos pulled out semifinal wins in tiebreakers after splitting the first two sets.
The Roddys have been playing together in competition for the first time ever this summer in a league at the Champions Club, according to Eric, another recent college player about to begin a college coaching career. The 2016 Sewanee graduate spent the past year teaching English in northern Spain but is set to be the interim head coach this fall at Swarthmore in Pennsylvania. He will be an assistant in the spring after the Swarthmore coach returns from a sabbatical.
Eric said he got the job from a recommendation by Sewanee coach John Shackelford.