Passion Tennis Team Ends Season in Fifth Place

Passion players welcome opponents to a home match at the team’s courtside snack table. (left to right): Myrna Bodner, Jill Santy, Cooky O’Brien and Lynne Carlyle

Passion players welcome opponents to a home match at the team’s courtside snack table. (left to right): Myrna Bodner, Jill Santy, Cooky O’Brien and Lynne Carlyle

Pat Ingalls

The PebbleCreek Passion Tennis Team finished its 2019-2020 season in fifth place in the Women’s Interclub Tennis Association’s 13-team B3 Division. The division’s level of play equates to USTA’s rating of high-3.5 through mid-4.0.

“We continually improved as the season progressed, by growing our skills through pro J.R. Lampley’s weekly clinics and by recruiting several key players,” said Pat Ingalls, who has been the team’s captain since its inception three years ago. She said that she and co-captain Debbie Welsh “enjoyed seeing [their] teammates being challenged and having fun, especially when competing successfully against the league’s often younger players.”

The remainder of Passion’s roster included Myrna Bodner, Diane Bostock, Barbara Camozzi, Kathy Carver, Vikki Constable, Roxie Forrest, Sara Foster, Cindy Henry, Wendy Langhals, Cooky O’Brien, Pat Owens, Joan Patchin, and Jill Santy.

Approximately 1,500 women, ages 21 and up, compete on 123 teams throughout the Phoenix metropolitan area in the WITL’s nine divisions. Season matches, which usually run from late September through mid-April, concluded abruptly in early March, six weeks earlier than planned, due to concerns about COVID-19.