USTA Missouri Wraps Up Date Night Tournament Series
The fourth and final installment of the USTA Missouri “Date Night” tournament series took place indoors Friday, November 17 at Cooper Tennis Complex in Springfield. Mixed doubles teams at the 18 & Over NTRP combo 7.0 and 7.5 levels played a full evening of tennis complete with pizza, snacks and prizes — with the grand prizes for 2023 getting handed out, too.
“It was a lot of fun,” said Leslie Echols, USTA Missouri executive director. “People really enjoyed the format. It was fast four with ad scoring so they could play three matches all in one evening. The goal was to have three solid hours of tennis. It was a fun tournament. It was nice to have prizes and there was always food. It was just a fun Friday night.”
At each of the one-night mixed doubles Date Night tourneys occurring throughout 2023, teams played a guaranteed three matches starting at 6:00, 7:00 and 8:00 p.m. Matches were two short sets to four games with a seven-point tiebreak at one set all. Registration was limited to four teams for each division — NTRP combo 7.0, 7.5 and 8.0
At all four editions — winter, spring, summer and fall — division-winning teams chose from such prizes as USTA T-shirts, $10 gift cards to Academy Sports + Outdoors and Thorlo socks.
Grand prizes were also awarded to players who accumulated the most total games won at all the 2023 Date Night tourneys. In the 7.0 division Josh Bartram and Tami Murphy earned the grand prize, while Anthony Jones and Echols collected the grand prize for the 7.5 division. Bartram, Murphy, Jones and Echols received $25 apiece and a USTA swag bag for their efforts.
The Date Night tournament series was new for USTA Missouri in 2023. While Echols said the district may host Date Night tourneys again, she’d like to run something new in 2024.
“There has been a lot of interest in doing a similar event but making it a family night,” Echols said. “We’re going to try that in 2024. It’s still a similar format. But we’ll have fathers and daughters, mothers and sons, that sort of thing. So youth can play as well. We’re going to give that a shot.”
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