Eastern 10.0 team reaches final at 2025 USTA League National Championships

Coming in clutch. En route to reaching the final in their division at the 2025 USTA League National Championships—held Nov. 7-9 at the Surprise Tennis & Racquet Complex in Surprise, Arizona—USTA Eastern’s Rye, N.Y.-based 10.0 Mixed team contested a whopping eight courts that extended to a third-set match tiebreaker—and triumphed in all eight of them.

“There’s no doubt the [tiebreakers] made the whole experience even more dramatic!” said Chiara Ciabatti, the team’s captain. “[But] if we hadn’t come out on top in each of those crucial moments, we might not have reached the semifinals, let alone the final on Sunday. For sure the momentum and extra confidence we gained from winning those tight tiebreakers, especially in the early rounds, was very important ”

Ciabatti couldn’t definitively say that there was one key factor that made the difference in all eight of those nailbiters—six in the round robin stages of the event and two in the semis—but she thought she fielded a strong, game squad of energetic newcomers and seasoned veterans. In fact, three members of the Eastern contingent lifted the 10.0 Mixed championship trophy in 2014.

“Many of us had previous experience at Nationals, either as captains or players across various levels,” Ciabatti said. “That gave us valuable insight into organizing practices, matches and logistics…and handling pressure.”

“We fell behind in the second partly due to a knee injury,” Ciabatti explained. “Nevertheless, our team rallied, played an outstanding tiebreaker, and clinched the victory! That win propelled us into the final.”

They’d ultimately come up short in the final battle against USTA Northern California—narrowly losing their first two third-set match tiebreakers of the entire event. While Ciabatti said the team was disappointed not to lift the championship hardware, everybody was also very proud of how far they’d come and appreciated claiming their spot on the podium.

“It’s a challenging road [just getting to Nationals], requiring everything to fall into place, and we couldn’t have achieved it without everyone’s support, including those teammates who couldn’t fly to Arizona, and my co-captain Clinton [DeVries],” Ciabatti said. “We were a bit disappointed about the loss, but we were also extremely proud to have just reached the final, an accomplishment we consider truly remarkable! While we always believed in our team’s abilities, it felt beyond our expectations. So many factors have to align for something like this to happen. It truly felt like a dream come true.”

Ciabatti noted that most members of the team have been friends for over a decade. (And many, she added, are partners or married; Walsh, who secured the aforementioned semifinal victory, is her husband.) She thought the close-knit bonds they’d all forged over time—as well as a strong sense of camaraderie developed on courts across New York—contributed greatly to their success over the course of the weekend. But win or lose, she noted, just lacing up the tennis sneakers with pals was really what it was ultimately all about.

“The best part of the experience was simply being out on the court, playing tennis,” she said. “Having a full-time job and being parents of two young kids, our schedules are usually so packed that, even though we love the game, we often go weeks and sometimes months without playing. Getting to play so many matches was fantastic, and a true reminder of why we love this sport so much. In the end, there’s nothing quite like spending a few days playing the sport you love with your tennis friends, right?”