The 2024 Lexington Tennis Club Open
An amazing night of tennis, fun and friendship took place at the Lexington Tennis Club on Friday December 6, 2024.
The proud field of cpompetitors at the 2024 LTC Open.
26 players came together to compete in this 2nd annual LTC Open and raised over $2,000 for All Court Enrichment (ACE).
ACE is a local, non-profit organization that provides children in Somerville, Medford, and Cambridge with opportunities for enriching summer programming focused on tennis and writing. In 2024, ACE served over 350 children in its summer camps, with 224 of them receiving full, need-based scholarships.
The LTC Open had two divisions - intermediate and advanced, and each saw some great tennis and healthy competition.
Champs and finalists celebrate together!
In the intermediate division, Lucie Gulino and Erin Whitney won the championship, defeating Mike Shiposh and Avery Morgan in the final. This is the first championship for Gulino and Whitney, though they have played in finals before. No strangers to playing on the big stage, they showed steely nerves as they took down Shiposh and Morgan 4-1.
“It was great to finally win a championship after coming up short for years,” Gulino said after the match. “Erin and I lost to Mike and Avery 4-0 in the round robin portion of the event. Fortunately, we had the mental strength to believe that we could still take home the trophies.”
As fans and ACE tennis historians will attest, Mike Shiposh had year for the ages in 2024. In addition to this final at the LTC, he won the 2024 Medford Open, and made the final at the Tufts Team Tennis Championships in June. Not quite an ACE Triple Crown, but we should all tip our collective cap for such a historic campaign.
For Gulino and Whitney, the path to the finals went through a playoff with Sergei Mirkin and Kristin Robson. Once through that gauntlet and into the finals, this power duo finished the job and took home the championship hardware.
Mirkin and Robson were steady throughout the evening thus qualifying for the playoff. However, the closer you get to the top of the mountain, the steeper the incline. This pair couldn’t quite reach the summit. This is the first ACE event for both Robson and Mirkin. With this experience, they are now battle-tested and ready for the high pressure moments that they will inevitably face in future ACE events.
A huge shout out also goes to Daniela Reilly and Kim Riggs. Good friends who play together throughout the summer, this pair took the bull by the horns in their first ever ACE event. They won their first round match 4-2, and followed that up with 3 solid results that put them in the running. They missed the playoff by 1 point, but a fabulous showing from these two first-timers!
Rounding out the intermediate division was Tara Lynch and Catherine Kopec. Lynch and Kopec are currently training out of Winchester and acquitted themselves quite well in their first event together.
Advanced division champs and finalists hoist the hardware, framed handsomely by the ACE logo.
In the Advanced Division, Laura Remington and Tommy Kowalczuk won the championship, narrowly defeating Adriana Garrett and Becky Esboo in the finals, 4-3.
The final match went to a tie break (7-5). Remington and Kowalczuk held on as Tommy’s serve proved to be a formidable weapon throughout the event. Remington, an aggressive, net rushing player, added to the team’s firepower.
Remington, in her post-match presser, said, “I learned something from my first two ACE events…you need firepower! That’s why I got Tommy. This 16-year-old lefty had a dazzling serve to complement his ground strokes.”
Garrett and Esboo did not go quietly into that good night. As Suffolk University Tennis alums (now coached by ACE Board Member Zack Goodstein), they showed the grit and fighting spirit that is the hallmark of every Ram tennis player. Garrett’s big serve and Esboo’s solid volleys brought this team to the precipice of a championship. We’ll see if they can grow from this experience and come back even stronger in 2025. Seeing the determination of these two competitors, a revenge tour seems inevitable.
Setino rips a serve in his opening round match.
Dan D’Agata and Adam Setino also made some noise in the advanced division. After losing 4-0 in their opening round, they began taking the edge off, sipping beers during their breaks between matches, even asking if they could bring their Coronas onto the court. That was a hard no, but they did rattle off 3 straight wins to finish the event. Their sober goose egg in round one was all that kept them from making the finals. Lesson learned for these guys. They’ll probably need designated drivers home from the next ACE event.
Mansuripur loads up for a forehand return.
