Three people left the Manker Patten Tennis Club on Sunday with singles and doubles titles in the Tennessee Valley Open Championships, all three living up to No. 1 seedings: Isaiah Strode in men’s open, Hayley Carter in women’s open and Ken Koelling in men’s 55s.
Only Koelling was a repeat champion in the TVOC. His participation dates back to the early 1980s, after he finished his University of Tennessee at Chattanooga tennis career with four Southern Conference team championships and an individual title.
Koelling came to UTC from Starkville, Mississippi, where his father was a Mississippi State professor, and when he won his 55s TVOC title in 2017 he was in his 20th year in Meridian as a hospital perfusionist, working the heart-lung machine during surgeries.
Since then, he has retired and moved to the Charlotte area for the big-city experience and to play more tennis at a serious level.
“There’s a club there called Old Providence. I’ve never seen so many good players in one club,” Koelling said Sunday. “It has 80 to 100 players that will be good practice partners for me.”