The Rancho Cienega Tennis Club (RCTC) will be hosting its fifth annual Rancho Team Tennis Tournament from May 28-30. Due to the construction at Rancho Cienega Park, the tournament will take place at Roger’s Park in Inglewood.
The Memorial Day weekend tournament is open to 64 players: 32 men and 32 women. They will be divided into teams of eight who will compete in the World Team Tennis format, according to tennis club president Michael Recasner.
“There’s men’s and women’s singles, Men’s and women’s doubles and mixed doubles event with a total of five events creates a team,” Recasner said. “It’s fun. It’s one of the events that we do at the club that a lot of people enjoy.”
The club then randomly assigns people to different teams. RCTC members must pay $20 to compete while non-members must pay $40. Anyone can sign up for the tournament regardless of age, race, or experience level.
There will be four matches played each day with a match starting every two hours. The tournament begins at 9:00 A.M. each day. All players who participate will play three games and must be available to compete during Memorial day weekend. Like in World Team Tennis, teams are allowed to substitute players during matches.
“We come up with rules that is fair for everybody, whether you’re a beginner, whether you’re a novice or an advanced player,” Recasner said. “This is a team event, so you want the team to win, so you’re going to cheer on your team whether the person is good or whether they’re a novice.”
The tournament consists of two evenly divided brackets, and the winner of both brackets will face off in the championship. The team that wins the championship will earn a cash prize.
The RCTC has events every month that is open for anyone to participate in, the club also sponsors the Jackie Tatum Tennis Tournament. Along with hosting events, the club works to give back to the community through its scholarship program for high school seniors. They also host a benefit tournament around Thanksgiving.
“It started with turkey dinners, but then now we’re asking people to donate food and we’ll turn around and we’ll donate the food to homeless shelters,” Recasner said. “And we’ve also turned it into toys now. So you bring toys and we will donate the toys to the shelters in the community for the children.”
Members who have since moved from the Los Angeles area still attend RCTC events. For Recasner, RCTC events occasionally give the feel of a family reunion.
“If you love tennis, you’re gonna want to come out and just watch one of our events and see how much fun we have overall,” he said. “Once you watch one of our events and see the amount of fun that we have during our events, then you’re gonna want to participate.”
For more information about the Fifth Annual Rancho Team Tennis Tournament, visit the Rancho Cienega Tennis Club’s page on Facebook.
