Local Tennis: Serving up something special

It wasn't even the $20,000 raised for the Step By Step charity in the inaugural ASG Pro-Celebrity Challenge.

"The best thing about this event was that Step By Step got a lot of exposure it might not have gotten otherwise. It raised the level of awareness about a very important organization in our city," said event director Louanne Fischer. "The tournament has been a big asset to them and that was our first goal: to expose Step By Step to new people who could help them meet their needs."

Proceeds of the day-long team special will go toward support ing the agency that addresses early childhood education and therapy. It specializes in helping kids born with disabilities. The not-for-profit facility faces challenging financial struggles after its recent reorganization.

Pros and amateurs alike took pride in being a part of something so meaningful.

"I had never been in anything like this before. The balls were coming at me a million miles an hour compared to what I'm used to," said amateur entry Peirce Andrews, who teamed with the Naples Bath & Tennis Club's Ido Abougzir to win the men's

"It was just a great experience and great to be a part of something that's for such a good cause," added the 30-year-old Andrews. He's a fulltime computer information systems student at Florida Gulf Coast University who helps out with tennis instruction at the Naples Bath & Tennis Club when time allows.

Niki Varveris, a winner in the women's 4.0/4.5 division with the always-willing-to-pitch-in Kathy Rinaldi, echoed Andrews' sentiments.

"It was really fun. I was nervous at first," she said. "But Kathy was just awesome to play with.

She was very encouraging. It was a great experience overall."

Rinaldi was just one of the notable former touring pros to participate. The field also included Jimmy Arias, Johan Kriek, brother Luke and Murphy Jensen, Brenda Schultz-McCarthy, Patti O'Reilly and Raluca Onila.

The event generated charity money through the auctioning off of the teams to individual owners, a lively process that took place Friday night at the LaPlaya.

After a silent auction Saturday night there, Fischer said she would have a better handle on the final amount of money raised for Step By Step.

"Our goal was $20,000 the first year and I'm sure we'll meet that and even go beyond," she said.

"We will do this again next year and we certainly would like to have it back here at Wyndemere if at all possible. They have some construction planned that will temporarily interfere with a couple of the courts. Hopefully, all will be in place so we can come back."

In the men's 4.5-plus finale, the Andrews-Abougzir team defeated Kevin Long and Keith Embree in a 6-2 pro set. Third place in that category went to Denny Rager and Fred Drilling over Luke Jensen and Art Allen.

Murphy Jensen teamed with Karl Sheffield to score a 6-2 decision over Mark Vines and Michael Stein in the finals. Arias and Jack Antaramian took the third-place match over Scott Harrington and Fred Pezeshkan.

The Rinaldi-Vaveris team was an 8-5 victory over the duo of Schultz-Patti Muschong in the women's finale. The Onila-Kathryn Rieger team captured third place over O'Reilly-HaeRee Archer.

"In the first round, I'll take the credit for our success," laughed Andrews' teammate Abougzir.

"But after that, Peirce stepped it up. He did a great job."