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Local women head to the Front Range for district championships

Jeff Caspersen
Post Independent Staff
Rifle, Colorado CO
Jeff Caspersen Post IndependentLynn Goluba, far right, serves to Emily Wilbur, foreground, during a tennis practice at the Glenwood Springs Community Center on Thursday. The community center's women's 3.0 level team is playing in the United States Tennis Association Adult District Championships on the Front Range this weekend.
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GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colorado – It’s hard to argue that Sue Geist is the point person when it comes to tennis in Glenwood Springs.

She’s the contracted professional for the Glenwood Springs Community Center, where she runs lessons and leagues for adults and youth. She’s something of an ambassador for the sport locally, where, in particular, adult women’s league play is booming in popularity.

Local ladies spend much of their summer battling it out in leagues sanctioned by the United States Tennis Association (USTA), traveling to matches anywhere from Aspen over to Edwards. Some levels of players even trek as far as Breckenridge or Steamboat Springs.



This weekend, a few of those local squads will be traveling a bit farther to compete.

A community center squad playing at a National Tennis Rating Program (NTRP) level of 3.0 is bound for Denver’s Pinehurst Country Club for the USTA Adult District Championship.



A 3.5 team representing Glenwood Springs will play at the Colorado Athletic Club Monaco in Denver and a 4.0 crew from River Valley Ranch is headed to the Colorado Athletic Club Inverness in Englewood.

Flighted play begins today.

“The USTA leagues are just taking off,” Geist said while overseeing a Thursday-morning practice at the relatively new four-court complex at the community center. “These courts here are really the reason why tennis in Glenwood has exploded. A couple years ago, the [Colorado Tennis Association] told me we have more new teams than anybody else per capita.”

This weekend, the Glenwood teams will see how they stack up on the Front Range. Each squad fields two singles teams and three doubles teams for its matchups. Trips to the Aug. 24-26 section championships in Salt Lake City are on the line.

Geist, who coaches the 3.0 ladies, likes her team’s chances.

“This is an exceptional group,” she said. “This group loves to get out and play tennis at least once a day, sometimes a couple times a day. We have a chance to make it [to sections], hopefully.”

Advance or not, you can be sure Geist’s group will have fun.

“It’s a lot of fun,” said Lynn Goluba, a member of the 3.0 team. “All of us are old athletes getting that taste for competition again.”

jcaspersen@postindependent.com


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