Tournament Recap: 2024 World Team Championships Mexico

DATES: April 28 - May 3, 2024
LOCATION: Mexico City, Mexico
DIVISIONS: 50, 55, 60

50s Heather Waters

Maria Bueno Cup

Mexico City, Mexico was the location of my second World team competition. The opening ceremony, filled with traditional Mexican music and dance, was held at CDI, the location hosting the men’s and women’s 60 divisions. The Reforma Athletic Club a (centurion club) was the location of men’s and women’s 50, along with the women’s 55 divisions. The Reforma Athletic Club, surrounded by a large rock wall and iron gates, is a beautiful club with multiple soccer fields, swimming pools and red clay courts nestled around the property.

Arriving a couple of days before play was essential in our team adjusting to altitude and air conditions in Mexico. Led by our Captain Amanda Parson, myself (Heather Waters), Isabella Iantosca and Julie Silveira all stayed in a lovely flat located in the Polanco area. Thankful for instant team chemistry as it would become a major factor in our 3rd place Bronze finish.

With 19 countries, there were 6 brackets and 7 seeds. Our team was seeded 6th, meaning we were in the last and only bracket with 4 teams and no day of rest. After winning all 3 matches against Argentina, South Africa and 7th seeded Portugal, we played 4th seeded Peru in the quarters. With a decisive 3-0 victory, our next opponent would be the 1 seed Italy. Unfortunately, after hours of hard fought matches, we lost 1-2 to Italy leaving the club at 11:55pm.

Exhausted but determined, we returned to play France in the 3/4 playoff at 10am. While we all wanted to win, Amanda and myself had an extra incentive to beat France. The year before in Turkey, we were a part of the 45 World team whose only loss was to France, who ended up winning the Championship in 2023. With determination, teamwork, and our 3C motto, we were able to beat France 3-0 in a very sweet victory!

As we waited for the completion of the finals, (Italy/Great Britain - GB with Gold), we gathered as we had the past six days enjoying our suero (sparkling water-lime juice and a salted rim), celebrating our Bronze medal! Representing the United States is an experience that words cannot convey. We celebrate all of the USA teams, especially our 55 ladies who won gold and gave endless amounts of wisdom, receiving congratulations on our WhatsApp thread and hugs from our USTA representative Andrea Gutierrez. 2024 ITF Worlds Team competition was a blessing and I am grateful to the ITF, USTA and NWTO for providing opportunities to play and continue our love of this beautiful game of tennis!!!

55s Ros Nideffer

Maureen Connolly Cup

As is typical for the World team championships, I, as captain, was invited, a few weeks before the event, to submit my recommendations for seedings. This was a difficult task as the top five teams were all very closely matched and deserving of seeding. Since we had 16 countries entered in our age group, the format was to be four groups with four teams and one seed in each group which meant that one of the groups would end up with the fifth ranked country. We were very thankful that the ITF decided to seed 5 teams and place the 4th and 5th seeds, France and Spain respectively in group D. As the second seeds behind Italy, we were in group B, with The Netherlands seeded #3 in group C.

Being at high altitude, we (Debbie Nasim, Julie Cass, Judy, Newman and Ros Nideffer) arrived three days early to adjust to the conditions which were quite challenging. The pressureless balls were flying, the courts were dry and dusty, very fast and with many bad bounces.

The Opening ceremony on Sunday was held at Centro Deportivo Israelita (CDI). There were 26 countries, 101 teams, and over 400 players, who paraded into the Tussie Arena, welcomed by the Mexican National Army, ITF officials and club representatives.

Play began on Sunday with the Men’s 50’s, Women’s 50’s and our Women’s 55’s at the Reforma Athletic Club, a sprawling club with 20 courts staggered down a hillside, surrounded by trees which did much to curb the poor air quality of the city.

Our first match was against South Africa and although we were planning to have Debbie Nasim play at line #1, she discovered in the warm-up that her wrist was painfully sore and she was unable to hit forehands. I quickly reoriented myself, change the lineup which I had already submitted and stepped in to play the #2 singles. Fortunately, my opponent was still adjusting to the altitude and probably the long flight and I didn’t have any trouble securing the win. Julie Cass won comfortably at line #1 and Judy Newman and I easily won the doubles while Debbie sought treatment from the physio.

Day 2 was not without issues as Julie and Judy both developed “the runs” (“Turista” as Judy referred to it) overnight and were uncertain at the start of play. I had to wait until the last possible moment to turn in our lineup to make sure our team was fit to play against Portugal. Debbie’s wrist was improved with the treatment and she was eager to play. We won both singles comfortably, Debbie at #1 and Julie at #2. Judy and I won a pressure free doubles match to secure the 3-0 win over Portugal.

Day 3 was against a fun loving team of women from Ireland who had already lost to South Africa and Portugal which made for an easy 3-0 victory for us with the same lineup as the day before. Debbie’s wrist was improving daily and Julie and Judy were beginning to feel better too.

Wednesday was our day off between the round robin and the semi-final playoffs. We took the opportunity to visit some sights around the city. Our Uber driver which Judy had secured, as she was our Spanish interpreter, drove us around the city, visiting the Basilica of Guadalupe, Chapultepec Castle, National History Museum and then we had lunch at a lovely Italian restaurant called “Nonna” in the upscale district of Condesa. The night before, we had discovered Polanco, another upscale district which gave us a completely different and much more favorable view of Mexico City. If we had it to do over again, we would have found a VRBO in this area as the Women’s 50’s team had done.

Semi-final day was on Thursday against Spain. Julie again played the #2 singles and although she went three sets, I think we can say she went walkabout in the second set, losing it 6-1 but was never really in doubt of winning the match as she won the third set 6-0. Debbie had a tough two set win over the #1 player, Rosa Bielsa-Hierro, against whom she has had tough matches in the past. Judy and I had no problem securing the doubles and the 3-0 win.

Friday was finals day against #1 seeds Italy who beat Netherlands in the semis 2-1, securing the win with a 10-7 tiebreak in the doubles. Julie at #2 singles, often playing a serve and volley game, lost the first to Katy Agnelli 6-4 then dominated the second set 6-1. She was ahead 5-3 in the third before Agnelli turned up the heat and took a 6-5, 30-love lead, but Julie came back from the brink of defeat to win the tiebreak 7-3. Debbie’s opponent was Simona Isidori (#1 seed in the 55’s individuals draw). Debbie’s speed, consistency, guile and determination was too much for Isidori and Debbie prevailed 6-3 7-5 (after being down 3-5 in the second set) to give the USA the victory and the gold medal. Italy conceded the doubles to give us a 3-0 win which meant we did not lose a match the whole week.

It is always an honor to represent the USA and to win the gold medal was a satisfying climax to a great week.

60s Fran Chandler

Alice Marble Cup

Our team, competing in the Alice Marble Cup, was Vicki Buholz, Fran Chandler, Gayle Prejean, and Christine Paulsen. We all would like to thank the USTA for allowing us to compete and represent the USA. It’s quite an honor to play for the USA.

Our eventful trip started from the airport transport to our hotel. I had reserved a transport to pick us up. We didn’t know how bad traffic was going to be and that our driver could not speak English and that our spanish was spotty. Our driver had a small fender bender shortly into our voyage and he would not leave before the police gave him a report. So after 1.5 hours waiting on the side of the road in 85 degree heat, his company sent us a driver to take us on to the hotel.

Our hotel was very nice and connected to a nice mall, where we ate all of our evening meals. With the hotel being nice, we were warned not to go outside the hotel alone. My best find was the laundry which was only about 30 yards from the hotel.

There were 16 countries in the 60s so we had 4 groups of 4 with the top 4 seeds separated into groups. Additionally, 5-8 seeds were drawn, one in each group. We had France in our group along with Argentina and Portugal. France was upset by Argentina, and we beat Argentina and Portugal, but we lost to France in a match tie-breaker in doubles. Since we split singles with France, overall we only lost 2 matches and France lost 3, so we advanced.

We had a great match with Italy in the semi finals and won all 3 matches to put us in the finals against Germany. Vicki had a great win over Helga Nauck to get us into the doubles. Germany was strong in the doubles and they won 6-3, 6-4.

Our main challenge was to watch carefully what we ate and drank and then we still had issues. Some of the other teams had to default some matches because they were too sick to play. We all did a good job being careful not to have anything with ice, which made it difficult during matches to have room temperature water.