Point Set Team Heading Back to National Championships
This article was written prior to the National Championships being held. There will be a follow-up story in the January/February 2025 edition of Long Island Tennis Magazine
Déjà vu all over again.
A year ago, Laura Crain and her team from Point Set Tennis represented the USTA Eastern Section at the USTA National Championships. The team would go on to capture the national title in the 18+ 2.5 category. This year, Crain will actually be taking 2 teams to the National Championships as her Women’s 18+ 3.0 team and Women’s 40+ 3.0 team won their respective Sectional Championships.
“Since we won Nationals last year, a lot of our friends that played at the clubs we are a part of in Garden City and at Point Set got really excited and wanted to become a part of it,” Crain explained. “We will have our core group of six players, and many players who were on the team last year but were unable to come on the road and travel with us to Nationals. We also added a few friends and competitors this season that really helped us get enough key wins to reach this point.”
In total, the team consists of 24 players who have been dedicated and working together since May. Bringing together new players to a team that already had success can be a difficult task for team captains, but as Crain said, the chemistry the team had was established early and everyone on the team had the same mission.
“Most new additions this year were friends from our country club teams that I had either played with or against so I knew 99 percent of them. The other players that joined were those that we met at Point Set tennis through drills and leagues and honestly they fit right in,” explained Crain. “Everyone that joined this team had a strong work ethic and a desire to play the game fairly and competitively, and take it as far as we could go.”
The road to Nationals is oftentimes not a linear one, and it took a lot of effort from the top of the roster down to win at Sectionals, for both of Crain’s teams.
“Both 18+ and 40+ sectionals came down to the very last matchup. It was a story that everyone there, other than us perhaps, had hoped for. Two undefeated 4-0 teams going head to head in the final battle, winner takes all! I guess it was good to feel that pressure early on to prepare us for Nationals,” she said. “The 18+ Sectionals final matchup came down to court one singles. Sam Bidermann, our top seeded singles player, put the team on her shoulders and came through with the most clutch 15–13 tiebreak win to push us to nationals. She is a superstar and I’m so glad I met her in USTA Tri-Level last winter and asked her to join the team. You never know where you will find connections. It also helped to have the full support of Point Set Tennis. Lori and Melissa are an incredible USTA support system. Our group chat was filled with daily texts asking teammates to play pickup games. Lessons were taken, and then practice matches were played to put to use what we learned before USTA play.”
Crain and her team are hoping to lean on their championship experience from last year to rekindle that success this time around when they head to San Diego, Calif. in an attempt to repeat as champions. Knowing that it takes the whole team, and anyone can be asked to step up at any moment, will help them succeed.
“We are chameleons. You need a singles player and someone has never played singles, they’re going to rise to the occasion. Someone gets hurt an hour before the match, someone else is going to raise their hand, step up and fill that spot. We don’t let each other down,” Crain said. “I try and be as fair as possible with my teams because I need their trust and they come through every time. Captaining has been one of the most rewarding experiences in my 40 years. I can’t wait to see what happens in California and Arizona. Even if we don’t get the title this year, the journey has been nothing short of incredible, and these teams will remember this for a really long time. That’s the best part.”
