Point Set Team Wins USTA National Championships
There’s nothing quite like winning when you are the underdogs.
That’s exactly how the team out of the USTA Eastern section representing Point Set Indoor Racquet Club felt when it headed southwest to compete in the USTA National Championships at the end of last year. Captained by Laura Crain and Cristina Handal, the team began the season with tame expectations for itself, but through team chemistry, dedication and hard work, ended up claiming the national championship in the Women’s 18+ 2.5 category.
“A deep drive to win,” said Crain when asked what the key to their team’s success was. “We faced some crazy competition in the regular season and actually were underdogs going into the playoffs as the team from Christopher Morley finished in first. They beat us twice in the regular season and were undefeated going into the playoffs. Finally beating them in the playoffs was such a sweet victory for us.”
That victory helped propel the team into the Sectionals and then eventually into the National Championships, a long way away from where the team was just a year ago. In fact, the team only came together last season which was the first year competing in USTA Leagues for everyone on the roster. The team members played out of three different clubs in and around Garden City, but decided rather than playing against each other, they should come together and form a team to compete in USTA leagues. 
“One of the pros in town put us in touch with Point Set and the rest is history,” Crain said. “Lori, Maureen and Melissa from Point Set were so amazing. As new tennis players and new USTA players, we had so many questions. There are so many rules that you need to know and they were such a wealth of information for us. I can’t imagine playing out of any other club and having the same experience. One of the first texts we got after winning was from them. They followed us the whole time and were such a great support system for us.”
The National Championships were held in Tucson, Ariz. and the team took six of its players to the competition, as some of the team members were ineligible based on the amount of matches they had played during the regular season. Despite only having six rostered players, and competing against teams who primarily had more than 10 players, Crain and her team did not let that deter them.
The circumstances required everyone on the team stepping up and contributing more than they had throughout the season. Crain played singles for the first time all season, and won her match, while she also paired with Caitlin Sorohan to come back from 5-9 down in a match tiebreaker against the team from Texas in the final match of group play to qualify for the semifinals.
Lindsey Rosenberg suffered heat stroke during her first match yet pushed through to win a key doubles match two days after that, while Elise Chamberlain battled through the heat to win a nearly three-hour long singles match in the semifinals.
“That win was the reason we made the finals,” Crain said.
In the championship match, the team from Point Set battled against the top team from USTA Caribbean, and despite falling behind 1-5 in the second set, the first doubles duo of Marie Romeo-Gough and Sivan Chapman came back to tie that set, and then win the ensuing tiebreaker 7-4 to seal the national title for the team from Point Set.
It’s a cliché you hear a lot, but for this team, winning was truly a team effort that required everyone to do their part.
“We came together in a way that proved to be a winning combination, but we also became really good friends,” said Crain. “The best moments of the trip were of course the matches, but also hanging out at the hotel, all the dinners, walking around Target looking for matching sandals and water bottles, talking strategy in each other’s hotel rooms, and sharing a bottle of wine or champagne when we won, those are the best memories we’ll take away from this.”
The time spent at Nationals, and throughout the season, helped provide memories that will last a lifetime for the six players who brought the championship back to Long Island. From beginning the season as novice tennis players who didn’t understand much about competing in USTA leagues, to being crowned the best team in the country in their division, it was a long journey that was well worth the ride.
“After we won, the league official was ‘shooting the breeze’ with us and he said that they had all expected to see Caribbean in the finals, and that the SoCal and NorCal teams were the big contenders. We asked him if anyone had inquired about Eastern and he said, ‘No’, we weren’t on any team’s radar. We slid in there as underdogs and we came out National Champions,” recalled Crain. “While it was just the six of us that made it to Sectionals and Nationals, it was our whole team and our co-captain Cristina Handal who secured so many amazing wins throughout the season that got us into the playoffs in the first place. We never would have advanced if it wasn’t for them. The entire Crain-Handal team out of Point Set all played, all won and all helped in this victory.”
