Missouri Valley / St. Louis

USTA St. Louis Teams Progress to Nationals

Josh Sellmeyer | October 04, 2022

USTA St. Louis will be sending three teams to USTA League Nationals in the coming months. An exhilarating summer season culminated in some great Section Championships around the section. Three teams (two men’s and one women’s team) punched their tickets to Nationals by winning their respective Section Championships.

The first team to play at Nationals will be the Ward Stars, an 18 & Over 2.5 women’s team. To read a previously published story about the Ward Stars, click here.

Within one year of the majority of its members learning tennis, the Ward Stars rolled to a 10-2 record and captured the USTA St. Louis District championship.

The team backed that up with a near-flawless performance at the USTA Missouri Valley League Section Championship in Oklahoma City on August 19-21. The Ward Stars didn’t lose a single court at the Section Championship and went 18-1 in sets, capturing 108 of 145 games played.

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Perhaps even more impressively, the team then rolled to a 16-2 record en route to capturing the National Championship In Oklahoma City September 29 - October 1. What an incredible way to cap off a storied season!

This is a far cry from the team’s humble beginnings just over a year ago according to team co-captain Brooke Cusumano, who started the team with her childhood best friend Ellie Straub.

“We were all pretty terrible. I can say that with some confidence,” Cusumano said. “It’s not like we’re amazing now, but at least we can place the ball. A lot of people on the team had just moved to St. Louis or come back from living somewhere else. Ellie moved from New York. I moved from D.C. We were like, ‘Oh, yeah, we should try tennis.’”

An 18 & Over 4.5 men’s team captained by Brett Hartig and Bryan Rigby prevailed at the same Section Championship in Oklahoma City. They faced off against their rivals from USTA Heart of America in the finals in a tightly contested match.

Hartig and Rigby began captaining together in 2019 and head up the fun and competitive Thursday night Forest Lake league. In addition to the core from that league, Hartig and Rigby brought in other players new to town to form the 18 & Over 4.5 squad. Hartig noted all eight players who competed in the section championship final are regulars in the Thursday night league.

With a bid to nationals on the line, the St. Louis team came through with an exhilarating 3-2 win over the Heart of America group to capture the Section Championship. A doubles pairing won 10-8 in a tight third-set tiebreaker to clinch the match for the Hartig/Rigby team. With the victory, the group qualified for the national tournament taking place October 7-9 in Surprise, Arizona.

“We knew basically there were going to be two tiebreakers, and we had to get one of the two,” Hartig said. “We had a new doubles team that had played singles together and hit together a lot that won it. We got to play at the University of Oklahoma indoor tennis facility, which was an awesome place to watch tennis. It was the type of environment we don’t get to play in or watch very often. It might have helped us, too, with some of our bigger servers.”

A 65 & Over 8.0 men’s team, Constance/Bealke, also earned a nod to nationals. That team’s national tournament is in February 2023. Stay tuned to learn more about this team’s inspirational journey as their national championship approaches.

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