One-Night Doubles Tourneys Continue Being a Hit

One-night doubles tournaments within USTA St. Louis continue to be a fun, competitive and popular option for adult players. USTA St. Louis has hosted several one-night events since October 2022 with more opportunities coming up for players to join in on the action.

USTA St. Louis held a pair of one-night mixed doubles events last October and has run several more since the start of 2023. In late January, Scott Stinson and the East St. Louis Community Tennis Association administered a 40 & Over one-night mixed doubles tournament in O’Fallon, Illinois. Megan Kovacs, USTA St. Louis executive director, said the event went extremely well.

“It was successful and all the levels filled,” Kovacs said. “They had more demand than they had space, so there were some alternates who weren’t selected. It was not anemic in any sense, so that’s good.”

Brian Kirk and Mark Zolman teamed up to run an 18+ one-night mixed doubles tourney in mid-February at Chesterfield Athletic Club. All four NTRP combo levels — 6.0, 6.5, 7.0 and 8.0 — filled as the event was a success with participants having an enjoyable time.

With the 7.0 level filling up swiftly and not all registrants in that division getting an opportunity to participate in other tourneys, USTA St. Louis ran just a 7.0 mixed one-night doubles tournament on March 4. The tournament at Forest Lake Tennis Club in Chesterfield directed by Severine Huchet filled and featured eight participating doubles tandems.

“The one-night mixed tournaments from October to April appeal to the mixed players because our mixed league is limited,” Kovacs said. “It’s a much shorter season that just plays in the summer essentially. Those players don’t have a lot of opportunity to play mixed while we’re busy with the 18+ season. The one-night tournaments give those mixed players an opportunity to continue to play competitively with their spouses, friends or whoever.”

Just to freshen things up, Kovacs is directing an 18+ one-night tournament featuring men’s doubles and women’s doubles on March 18 at Forest Lake Tennis Club for the 3.5 and 4.0 levels.

On April 1, Kovacs is running a one-night mixed doubles tourney at Creve Coeur Racquet Club. The event has divisions at the NTRP combo 7.0 and 8.0 levels as well as a mixed open division to provide higher-level players an opportunity to participate. Interested players can register for the tournament by clicking here.

USTA St. Louis and Kovacs are operating a second one-night mixed doubles tournament in April. This rendition occurs April 15 at Forest Lake Tennis Club with 18+ NTRP combo levels of 6.0, 7.0 and 8.0 available for registrants. Players can sign up for the April 15 tourney by clicking here.

And on May 13, Carobeth Kelly is running a Level 6 one-day tournament at Dwight Davis Tennis Center. The Dwight Pro-Set Showdown features singles play in the morning, doubles in the afternoon and mixed doubles in the evening. A variety of 18+ levels are available for players who can register for the tournament by clicking here.

Kovacs noted USTA St. Louis will provide additional one-night indoor offerings in the fall. Those tournaments aren’t published online quite yet with dates still to be locked in. Players can click here to view the current slate of USTA St. Louis adult tournament offerings for the remainder of 2023.

Or, if searching manually, players can click here. Under the ‘Player category’ dropdown, choose ‘Adult (18+).’ Under ‘Section,’ choose ‘Missouri Valley.’ Once the ‘District’ dropdown option appears, choose ‘St. Louis.’ Individuals can then select what date period they want to view to narrow their criteria before clicking ‘Search.’