Austin Tennis Academy News

November 5, 2009

ATA's Dream Team Takes National Championship

A group of 8 year olds start taking group tennis lessons. Their parents’ goal: expose their children to another sport. They’ve done volleyball and softball, soccer and basketball. Tennis is a great individual sport for their child to learn some skills. The kids go to lessons, enjoy the lessons, enjoy each other and continue on down the road of learning the sport.

Eight years later that same group of kids makes up the core of a national championship team. Sounds unlikely, doesn’t it? Unlikely or not, the ATA dream team, anchored by Jeff Offerdahl, Kate and Claire Cahill and Morgan Barnhill & Conor O’Rourke, all of whom started as beginners together a long time ago, captured the USTA 18 & under Team Tennis National Championships this past weekend in Mobile, Alabama. Brooke Hughes, Taylor Shamshiri, Aaron Chaffee and Josh Hagar rounded out the squad that is the best junior team in the country this year.

"I couldn't be more proud of the group we took to Mobile,” Coach Kendall Brooks said. “It was an amazing overall TEAM effort- everyone did a fantastic job of stepping up when they needed to and contributing to the team in their role. The energy and teamwork was fun to watch. And the fact that we are National Champions out of 5,000 teams is an amazing accomplishment."

This same core were 3rd place finishers last year and felt they had unfinished business in Mobile.

“The fact that we've been talking about coming back for a national championship for a solid year, and then actually going back and getting it done was unreal,” Kate said. “I always knew we had a strong chance of winning, but when we actually clinched the victory in the finals it was incredible. I can't even verbalize how it felt.”

They started playing rec level junior team tennis, went on to play ZAT, Champ, Superchamp and National level USTA individual tournaments, many play or played on their high school teams as well. At each succeeding level they continued to add to their training and competition schedules until they reached the pinnacle of junior team tennis, the national 18 & under championships.

"I feel this is my biggest accomplishment and the thing I am most proud of in my tennis career,” Kate said. “The feeling of playing for a team is incredible, and this was the epitome of a full team effort.”

Their victory was a team affair. Team #1 Boy Jeff Offerdahl, who has been competing in ITF (International Tennis Federation) tournaments, could not afford to miss two more days of school, so had to fly into the tournament Friday night.

As it turns out, the ATA dream team’s toughest match came in the very first round of the tournament against a talented New York team. Aaron Chaffee stepped up into the #1 Boys singles spot and played the match of his career to go even with a boy ranked light years ahead of him in the USTA national rankings. Josh Hagar and Conor O’Rourke beat a team with a former top 20 nationally ranked player on it to give the ATA team the lead. Morgan Barnhill and Kate Cahill, who went undefeated for the entire weekend, came out strong in that first match to help the ATA team win by a mere 7 games. Brooke Hughes played a tough singles match in that first round, while Claire and Taylor Shamshiri played a tough mixed doubles match. (JTT matches are total number of games won added together from a Boys Singles, a Girls Singles, a Boys Doubles, a Girls Doubles and a mixed doubles match).

The ATA team dominated in their 2nd and 3 rd rounds of round robin play to clinch a spot in the Semifinals. The lineup changed as #1 boy Jeff Offerdahl stepped up and dominated two very high level opponents.

“This accomplishment meant a lot to me, more than any tournament I have won, because we won this for ATA, not just ourselves,” Jeff said. “We represented ATA (which we do in every tournament), but this was more, because we were a team.”

Cahill and Barnhill continued their domination of the girls’ doubles. Aaron Chaffee and Taylor Shamshiri won both matches in the semis and finals at the boys’ doubles line. Claire Cahill played the girls singles line and competed against two very good opponents. Conor O’Rourke and Brooke Hughes played mixed doubles in the semis and finals.

“Mobile was the best weekend of my life,” Claire said. “Out of everything I've done over my 10+ years of tennis, I'm sure this will be what I remember most.”

What started as a recreational adventure 8-10 years ago turned into a competitive dream come true. Junior team tennis is a great way to make lifelong friends, compete hard and have fun. The ATA dream team came home with a national championship, their goal for 2010. REPEAT.

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