In spite of a Friday rainout, the annual Lopez Open tennis tournament was a great success, drawing players from Friday Harbor, Orcas Island and the mainland, as well as players from Lopez.  The tournament pot luck draw party was held Thursday evening August 1st in wonderful Lopez weather.  Only a few games were played on Friday before the rare summer rains swamped play for the day.  However, ingenious restructuring and rescheduling by Tournament Director Audrey Wakefield allowed all of the round-robin brackets to be completed and the tournament was back on schedule by Saturday evening.

Sunday’s finals were initiated with Dave Hall defeating Pat Howe in a nail-biting three setter that was decided by a 7-5 tiebreaker in the final set.  The first two sets were 0-6 and 6-4.  Dave also won the “Iron Man” award for playing more games (by far) than any other player in the tournament.

In women’s doubles Melissa Beckman and Annette Alling defeated Linda Vint and Becky McKee in two sets 7-5, 6-1.

The men’s doubles found Scott Jamieson and Tom McDaniel edging Tom Pal and Mark Collingwood also in two sets 7-6 (7-3), 6-3.

In the grand finale mixed doubles Jill Dann and Dave Alexander of Orcas Island topped Laura Geniuch and Timothy Maxon in two sets 6-2, 6-3.

It is interesting to note that all the winning doubles teams were composed of a right hander paired with a southpaw.