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The United States Tennis Association has over 711,000 players across the country—and in 2009, two of the best were from the Cedar Valley.
Dave Diercks, Supervisor of Plant Services, Operations and Maintenance at the University of Northern Iowa; and Mark Witmer, Director of North Star Community Services, partnered to take second place in the nation in the USTA Men’s 3.0 Senior Tennis Tournament last October in Tucson, Ariz.
Diercks and Witmer have been playing together as partners for the past two years. They both played tennis in their youth, but were away from the game for 25 or 30 years before returning to competition. They are part of a team of over-50 players, including Karl Nelson, Bob Rains, Steve Christensen, Georges Mullins (who is 72!), Cliff Highnam and team captain Mark Baade. Some of the team members rotate partners, but Diercks and Witmer have stuck together throughout their competitions.
League season runs October through January when the duo competes once or twice a month against other doubles teams from Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, Iowa City and the Quad Cities, usually playing each team twice during the season. Diercks and Witmer, along with the others on the team, then competed to represent the state of Iowa in the regionals. The team advanced to Oklahoma City to compete in the Missouri Valley Sectional Tournament against teams from Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Iowa.
Diercks and Witmer went 3-1 in sectional competition to advance to the national tournament. “We were the first team from Waterloo to ever get that far,” Diercks said. “In the past there have been two or three teams qualify, but never have finished better than fourth place.”
Seventeen teams from across the U.S. played in a round-robin format over two days, with the top four teams advancing to the semi-finals on Sunday.
“We were a little nervous in our first match,” Diercks recalled. “We got off to a slow start to an Ohio team, down 5-1, and we came back and won the match.”
The Iowans continued their winning ways, beating teams from Delaware and southern California. “My biggest fear was going against (a team) from California. It’s such a big state, with so many teams that play year round. A lot of states have many more teams (than Iowa) and tough competition, like Florida and Texas,” Diercks said.
The Iowa team prevailed, beating Tucson in the semi-finals for the spot in the championship round.
Diercks set the stage. “The final match is on the best court with about 100 people in the bleachers. Lots of other teams stayed to watch us. Our spouses were a wreck!”
“We had great support from our club back here (Black Hawk Tennis Club),” Witmer added. “They would post the scores online so everyone was following us. They all thought we were going to win.”
Diercks and Witmer fell to the Plano, Texas, teamin the championship match. Their second place banner proudly hangs at the Black Hawk Tennis Club—the only one of its kind in Iowa.
Witmer and Diercks attribute their success to playing well together as partners for the past two years and having been to the sectionals the year before. “We started having some success halfway through this past season, so we set a goal to make it to Nationals,” Witmer said.
They begin this season ranked no. 1 in the state. The “reward” for finishing so well is that the team moves up a ranking in the competition level. “It will take a year or two for us to get acclimated to more competition,” said Diercks. Witmer is also on injured reserve facing elbow surgery.
Still, the pride in their accomplishment lives on. “We realized this was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, so we went all out to win,” said Witmer.
“Just talking about the tournament makes me smile,” remembered Diercks. “It was great fun, great competition.”
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