Q&A: Winter Nationals Headed to San Antonio

Q:  How did you get the bid to host this year?

Brian Notis: A few months ago the USTA National put the word out to all the National Tournament Directors, and Nancy and I have both run national tournaments, so we both heard that they were looking for a new site for Winter Nationals for Boys and Girls 12s and 14s starting this year. 

 

I thought to myself ‘How great would it be to bring this event to Texas and specifically Central Texas?’

 

Being a tournament director in Austin, my first thought clearly was to bring the tournament to Austin, but I didn't really feel like we had the resources, the infrastructure, the tennis courts and the support from the community that we would need to be able to do a great job. 

 

I reached out to both Nancy and Bobby and the three of us got excited to work together as a team and bring the event to San Antonio because all three of us felt like San Antonio would be an ideal location.There are great courts, within reasonable distance of each other and it’s a really good city to bring a big event into over the holidays, and wouldn't be too terribly expensive for players to stay there, and there are lots of restaurants, and it’s easy to get into in terms of flights and whatnot. So, we went from there!

 

Nancy Almaraz: San Antonio offers three or four big locations along with several other court locations that are all close and I think that the accessibility of the facilities along with the central location of the hotels and restaurants and even next to the airport, made it convenient for people to fly in, stay close, and be able to have that accessibility to all the facilities much more easily. We also felt like the accommodations and everything were reasonable for families to come into San Antonio, which offers more than just a tennis atmosphere, but also a family environment to be able to vacation or do something as a family. 

 

When Brian came with the big push to have the tournament and have it in San Antonio, it felt like it was an ideal situation for all three of us to  work together and collaborate to make that happen. 

 

Q:  How does hosting an L1 tournament compare to hosting other levels?

Brian Notis: I think the L1s are the Slams of our Junior schedule. There's only four or five of them each year. They should be top notch. We want to be able to treat our players and our parents and coaches that come to watch really well. We want to treat them to the best quality facilities, to great officiating, to really good coverage of the event, and chair matches later in the event and we'll probably end up chairing significantly more matches than are required at an L1 with the support of TOSA and Bobby.

This L1 is also really large. It's a week long. It's 512 players. It's a very different feel from an L3 or L4 that we host on a weekend.

 

Bobby Duran: It's like planning a very large wedding.

 

Nancy Almaraz: Yeah, that is no lie! Okay,  you're thinking of everything from photographers to player parties and organizing to make sure every site has the same feel when a player goes to every site. They all have to be equally balanced, so when someone walks they don’t say one's doing more than this one or  the other one – making sure that they all are giving the same feel and welcome and energy about the tournament.

Brian Notis: And we definitely want to knock it out of the ballpark because we'd like to see this event stay here for a really long time.

 

Nancy Almaraz: Since it is 12s and 14s,  you’re really not only working on the players, but you are also focusing on the adults, the parents. Because you want it to be just a special for them coming in and watching while their kids play. 

 

Q:  Are you creating any new traditions with your event? What will make your L1 Winter Nationals unique?

Bobby Duran: Good question. So for our player party, one of the things we're going to be doing there is we're going to be bringing in some Mariachis to play as the players are checking in.

 

USTA Texas: I love that, it's so San Antonio!!

 

Brian Notis: I love it, too!

 

Bobby Duran: we're gonna have some pan dulce for the players in the morning and the parents and coffee at the sites. And then one of our sponsors is a Brazilian steakhouse and they are going to provide a dessert, warm pineapple with cinnamon, it’s amazing! And they are going to provide that at our sites for our players. 

 

Brian Notis: The tradition at Kalamazoo is blueberries and cream and we're hoping to create something analogous, that kids are excited to come back for.

 

Bobby Duran: Brian had mentioned that the players and parents sometimes need a place to go on New Year's Eve because it's hard to find places to eat on New Year's Eve. So I got three or four restaurants that have agreed to open up their doors for our L1 event, which we will be putting out on the website and sending out emails for parents to make reservations at a pretty good discount. 

 

So that they can have a place to go for New Year's Eve to get an early dinner because obviously they got to play the next morning. But they're not going to have to fight, say for instance, if they're from New York and don’t know where to eat. Here it is! You can make your reservation early in advance. So these kinds of traditions are what we're trying to set, with the food the Mariachis, the pan dulce and the churros.

 

Brian Notis: Yeah, I'm typically somewhere else on New Year's Eve for this very same reason and it's really challenging to find a place to take the kids for dinner. I mean I think last year we ate dinner at the hotel with a New Year's Eve party going, which isn't the end of the world for your 18 year olds, but it might be a little overwhelming for your 11 year olds.

 

Q:  Who gets selected to play in L1s? How do kids qualify?

Brian Notis: The selection process is done by USTA National. It's a combination of quota and National standing and I believe maybe even the winners of the prior L2s. Those are the three ways players can get in. And getting in by quota meaning each section gets a certain number of spots [quota numbers]  that they can fill for the event. Quota numbers depend on the size and strength of each section. And since sections are all different, the number varies by section.

 

For more information, see 2023 Section Quota List Explained

 

Q:  How many of the players at Winter Nationals will be from Texas?

Brian Notis: I would bet we will have 50-60 players out of the 512, maybe a little more.

 

Q:  For kids that have never competed nationally, but want to, what do you recommend?

Brian Notis: Honestly the lines have gotten gray because theoretically every tournament that we host now is a national event. Because we now have one National unified system. That's L1 through L7. And while there are certain events that are sanctioned by national and others that are sanctioned by our section, everything goes towards the same rankings and the same goals. 

 

For players that are trying to get an opportunity to play in something like this, like an L1, just keep working on your game and keep improving. If you're playing L6s and doing well, look to play L5s and start to play L4s  and continue to make progress, right? 

 

And I will say, in the younger age groups like in the 12s, especially in girl 12s, there's a lot more opportunities because the draw sizes are the same, but the number of players registering are  a lot smaller. So I suspect we'll have an opportunity to get a lot of Texas kids into our girls 12 L1, simply because I think fewer kids will travel. And maybe even with the boys 12s.

 

Q:  Is there anything else you would like to add to that?

Brian Notis: You can't get into any tournament that you don't register for. So don't be afraid if a  tournament might be a little bit of a  higher level than where you're at, because you never know, you might have a chance to get in. Don't be afraid to register.

 

Nancy Almaraz: I totally agree with that. If you don't enter you don’t  get the opportunity to see where you stand. Don't be afraid to register.

 

Q:  What is the story behind  the name Classic Rock Coffee?

Bobby Duran: The owner of Classic Rock Coffee, Eduardo Ruiz and his daughter, Stephanie, are tennis players here in the San Antonio community. 

 

I approached Eduardo and asked if he would be interested in being a title sponsor for the tournament and he was excited when he found out it was a national tournament because Classic Rock Coffee is  a growing national franchise. So he was very excited to supply the hoodies, and to really be a part of the event. So we told him if he did that we would name the tournament after Classic Rock Coffee.

 

Q:  Who are other sponsors for this event?

Bobby Duran: Broadway Bank, Frost Bank, Galpao Gaucho (Brazilian steakhouse), Shawn Connolly, President of the Greater San Antonio Adult League Tennis (GSALT), John Newcombe Tennis Ranch, Valero, and Whataburger.

 

Q:  What are you looking forward to most about your event?

Brian Notis: We haven't had time to start looking forward to stuff! We're on each little task. We have giant spreadsheets and Google docs that we’re working off of and meeting to see “hey, are we done with the logo? Are we ready to order the sweatshirts…” I appreciate that question!

 

Bobby Duran: I'm looking forward to everything coming together, because I think we're doing a really amazing job as far as getting ahead of everything and trying to think of everything and we all work very well together bouncing ideas off each other like “I didn't think of that, and Brian Nancy has a great idea, or Bobby, go back in the Box you're way outside the box.” I think we're doing really well. But I think I'm looking forward to seeing it all come together.

 

Nancy Almaraz: Me too. And these guys brainstorm well, and we're just trying to think of every angle and make sure we don't miss anything and make sure we hit the player experience as well as the spectator experience. And so the list keeps going on. If we get talking, we always think of something else that could add it on to help make it progress. I'm really interested to see how the registration process and the player party come together. It will be fun. That will be the kick start of it, and get things going.

 

Q:  What will a successful tournament look like for you?

Nancy Almaraz: I think it's just everything that we've done to try to plan from the time to scheduling to how Bobby's put all the sponsorships and to also in chairing, watching that all progress to each day and then the players enjoying their tournament and their experience and their time here, not just as a player, but just overall. That's a success.

Bobby Duran: Yeah, the player experience.

 

Brian Notis: I think having our customers be excited to come back and enjoy the experience and getting the word out that we're taking care of our players and parents and coaches that come and just recognizing that no matter how much we plan, everything's not going to go exactly perfectly the way we planned it, and just kind of being able to work together to solve whatever problems come up and make it go as smoothly as we possibly can. And then learn from it so we can get back and do it even better next year.

 

Q:  Is there anything else you would like to add?

Nancy Almaraz: I feel very honored and blessed that Brian and Bobby have included me to be able to host or be part of this big event and bring it to  San Antonio and the whole process of this. And the  partnership I have with these two guys,  I'm just very excited to work with them. It's been fun so far and I know it's only going to get better because we're going to grow.

 

Brian Notis: Outside of that, I think the collaboration with Bobby and Nancy and being the outsider in the San Antonio community here and being able to work with these two to bring such a prestigious event  to Central Texas and working with these guys the last few months. I know it is a great team.

 

Bobby Duran: I concur with that. And I really appreciate all the help that we're getting from the USTA Texas section and USTA national. We have a lot of support from the community and we bounce things off of them. 

 

Click here for more Classic Rock Coffee tournament details.

 

For more information about tournament points, see 2023 USTA Junior Tournaments Ranking System.