5.0 Women’s and Men’s Teams Both Set to Compete at USTA Nationals

“It really teaches you how to do your lineups. You can’t burn all your players out with the four matches on Friday and Saturday. You’ve got to have enough depth on your team that you can spread people out, so if you are playing on Sunday you still have energy.”

After Gadsky and multiple other players got bumped up from 4.5 to 5.0 several years ago, Gadsky stepped up to help organize a 5.0 league. A core group of the 5.0 players have kept the league rolling and orchestrated enough matches to gain eligibility for Nationals.

“What’s really nice with us being such a small area is if there are any players who want to play at this level, they usually contact the USTA office,” Gadsky said. “The office then immediately puts them in touch with me. Michael Lesko also sends them to me. It’s nice we have a small community because they know who to go to.”

Rob White/Michael Lesko’s 5.0 Men’s Team

White and Lesko teamed up as captains for the first time this year to form a strong USTA St. Louis 18+ 5.0 squad that won a stacked USTA Missouri Valley League Section Championship. The St. Louis team beat USTA Oklahoma, USTA Nebraska and USTA Heart of America in the round-robin format.

“It wasn’t easy,” Lesko said. “We squeaked by on a couple of tiebreak courts to be honest. It’s hard to say for sure, but I think our toughest matchup was the Nebraska team on Saturday morning. We had seen them the year before. Some part of that team finished in second place at Nationals, so we knew they were going to be tough.”

The Section Championship occurred August 4-6 in St. Louis. USTA St. Louis defeated USTA Oklahoma 3-0 with one of the courts decided in a tiebreak. St. Louis then clipped Nebraska 2-1 with the singles match determined in a tiebreaker. The team rounded out the weekend with a 2-1 victory over Heart of America to punch its ticket to Nationals.

“It’s a special moment,” White said. “I think it’s the first time since the ‘90s a St. Louis team is going to the 5.0 Men’s Nationals. And that team was able to win the whole thing. It’s special to be going. I know the whole team is really looking forward to it. And we’re looking to go all the way.”

White, Ben-Hur Kasprzak and Karl Heinrichs — all members of the 5.0 squad — were tennis teammates at UMSL. Lesko competed in the same conference at Quincy University. Milos Vuckovic played at Missouri Baptist University and Mac Burke is from the area originally, giving the team a decidedly St. Louis flair.

“For us, we’re excited kind of like we were in college,” Lesko said. “Rob, Ben and Karl are used to traveling together for trips and training for them. With our team practices we already have that team feeling going, which is nice. We’re going to face some tough competition at Nationals, but we’ll go in with a pretty good attitude about it and ready to go.”

The 5.0 team played five matches in the spring season to qualify for the Section Championships. Six players from the group will make the trip to Tucson in search of a National Championship.

“We spent a lot of time putting this team together, and we know each other very well,” Lesko said. “We knew we’d have a good shot at sectionals. Once it actually happened, we were of course pretty excited and kind of relieved it finally paid off. I was nervous quite a bit leading up to it. This is Rob’s first time going to Nationals. I could tell he was excited. He’s been building this up for a long time.”

To view all the USTA Missouri Valley League Section Championship winners, click here. To view a USTA St. Louis story on the 55+ 9.0 men’s team that qualified for Nationals, click here. USTA St. Louis will later feature the 65+ team that also advanced to Nationals.