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Inside Tennis, March 2003 - AATF at Los Gatos: Serving Together
There's the ATF - the national Burea of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms - and then there's the AATF - the Asian American Tennis Foundation. It's alphabet soup, but don't get them confused. Their only similarity might be that the tennis folks are "drun" with enthusiasm, "smoking" hot in their commitment to the game and "explosive" with their strokes on the court.
A great example of the AATF's drive was the winter workout for juniors held Dec. 23 at Los Gatos Swim and Racquet Club. Eighteen players from the 14s, 16s, and 18s age groups convened for four hours to hit together in preparation for major national tournaments and to get pointers from various teaching pros and Open division players from throughout the Bay Area.
"We were really happy with how it went," said AATF president Michael Jessup of the host club. "Just watching the guys hitting out there, it was clear why they are at the top of NorCal tennis. From what I heard, they really enjoyed getting together. Part of our motto is 'serving together,' so we were happy to be supporting our best players."
Jessup, who was born in Korea, received the help of Bryan Juinio, Byron Nepomuceno, Darryl Lee, Tony Yang, Chris Magyary and Brian Cummings as the junior standouts faced off in skills competitions.
The perfect result of the workour was the immediate success of Moraga's Eric Rasmussen, who is half Asian. NorCal's No. 1 player in the 18s won the Copper Bowl and made the quarterfinals of the USTA Winter Nationals.
- By Brent Ainsworth
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