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By: MATTHEW HENNIE
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THE HEAT BROKE. The clouds parted. And more than 200 gay and lesbian tennis players from 21 states, the District of Columbia and three foreign countries spent their Labor Day Weekend whacking tennis balls in Atlanta.
The Peach International Tennis Championships celebrated its 20th anniversary in fine fashion with competition across five divisions, matches for players age 40 and over, and the largest number of female participants of the three U.S. gay tennis events scheduled on the same weekend. Players from Georgia dominated, taking 16 of the 24 first place slots in the tournament.
“I give it an A plus,” said Jeff Mitchell, president of the Atlanta Team Tennis Association, which hosts the annual tournament. “It’s been very smooth and I’m having a good time.”
Organizers boasted of the event’s growing Open Division, the top-level of competition, and its continued growth of female participants, according to Dennis Duffy, who ran the tournament for the first time as co-director with Adam Helewski.
But even with about 60 of the tournament’s nearly 220 players being women, Duffy said that’s not enough. An ATTA board member for five years, Duffy said the organization wants to boost the number of female athletes in the Open Division.
THE PEACH OUTPERFORMED competing gay tennis events last weekend, drawing more overall participants than the Centre Court Championships in Los Angeles (183) and the Rose City Open in Portland, Ore. (130).
Those events also drew fewer women — about 10 percent of their overall participants, compared to about 30 percent for the Peach.
Duffy said the 15-member ATTA board hopes to recruit more female members to bolster its current tally of three. More women on the board will help their recruitment efforts for the Peach and the organization, he said.
Proceeds from the Peach will again benefit AIDS Survival Project, an Atlanta non-profit that provides advocacy, education, support and other services for people with HIV. A final amount was not available this week.
ROAD TO PHOENIX
The Hotlanta Softball League wrapped up its season last month. But for the 10 teams heading to the North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance World Series in Phoenix in early October, their work is hardly over. Teams are crunching to raise funds to make the trip, where the tab can run into the thousands of dollars.
HSL’s end-of-season event on Sept. 8 also serves as a fund-raiser for the World Series and is home to the “Mr./Ms. HSL Universe Pageant.” The Gammas, a women’s team that took first place in the Alternative Division, will host a golf tournament on Sept. 8 at 8 a.m. at Alfred “Top” Holmes Golf Course. The Eagles hosts a cook-out Sept. 22 at the Eagle.
The league is also registering participants for Fall Ball, a brief co-ed season that opens Sept. 23.
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