Super Seniors hit courts with zest

By Ann Miller
Advertiser Staff Writer

There is a tennis world where players are so steady that rallies almost never end because a ball is hit out. Courts are plentiful and 65-year-olds are treasured — for their youth. Memories of Alice Marble and Bill Tilden are more vivid than those of Venus and A-Rod.

Dee Costales returns a serve while her partner, Gladys Hallett, looks on, during a Super Senior event. Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser

Here, age truly is a state of mind, and that can be altered by the rush of a perfect poach and the beauty of a cross-court backhand winner.

"I happen to love to run on the court, but most people my age have learned to place shots well," says Masu Kusume Dyer, from Super Sweetspots. "We are here to stay."

Adds Helen Matsuo, who plays for Not My Fault: "I started playing when my daughter was 14 and she's 43 now. I'm so happy. I'm past 70 and still enjoy playing."

Leagues 3 years old

The U.S. Tennis Association began toying with the idea of Super Seniors three years ago. There have been teams on the Mainland nearly that long. They loosely follow a set of national guidelines.

This is Hawai'i's first shot at the format with some 70 players participating, all between 65 and 83. The average age is anyone's guess.

"Let's say 70," says Betty Marcus, captain of Not My Fault. "I'm older than that but I don't want to talk about it."

For some, this is a natural progression from league tennis and senior leagues, which start at age 50. Others are just starting in the game. Nearly all are anxious to play with people their own age and escape the increasingly contentious atmosphere the "younger" leagues can adapt.

"So far everybody is really nice," Marcus says. "Some opponents you play (in other leagues) are real diehards and maybe call bad lines, but this group is really harmonious and fun-loving."

"That," says Hideko Luedecke, of Serenity Wahines, "is what I like about it."

League organizer Gaye Fujimoto, 51, undertook the challenge of starting the league for the O'ahu District of the USTA partially because of the bad feelings in other leagues.

"I was an adult league coordinator," Fujimoto recalls. "I first ran a senior league a couple years ago. I truly enjoyed working with the seniors. They were much mellower than the adult league, I really liked them. Then a couple of them told me it was really tough for them to play somebody who was only 50."

Those players asked Fujimoto to look into a Super Senior League. When she resigned as Senior coordinator the following year — after a team captain "gave me a real hard time" — she became district treasurer and remembered their request.

The district took on Super Seniors, with Fujimoto coordinating. "I did it only because I really liked those people," she says.

Hawai'i off to 'good start'

She had hoped for more players, but admits 70 is "a good start." Her toughest task was finding captains. These players had been there and done that, and knew what a thankless job it was. She also found many women preferred not to play mixed doubles, so the men and women compete separately.

By all appearances, her effort has been worthwhile. Rallies are as abundant as open courts for a bunch of mostly retired players who work on their games while most work on their careers.

"I think that's a great benefit of age," Luedecke says, looking at the nearly empty Ke'ehi Lagoon courts.

There is another benefit, which almost makes up for that lost step and the newly discovered aches and pains that come with age.

"Seniors have lots of good power and pace and strategy," says Luedecke, 65. "They just killed us. In Super Seniors I think there is less power. It's all up here."

She points at her head. To enhance her tennis game and brain, Luedecke takes weekly private lessons with national age-division champ Suzi Swartman. Luedecke can only last 30 minutes now, but in league doubles she can run forever.

A lifetime sport

These are the poster children for an activity that markets itself as The Sport For a Lifetime. It's a brand new ballgame. During changeovers the conversation ranges from strategy to the benefits of bus passes — here and in Las Vegas.

The Super Seniors finally have a league of their own, far from the senior teams who recruit newly-minted 50-year-olds to help them reach the nationals.

They are even further removed from adult leagues, where some teams are so serious they accuse opponents of spying if they watch them play at national tournaments, which were started to enhance the game's social side.

The logical next step is for the USTA to formally coordinate the league and give the Super Seniors a national tournament as incentive. It could happen before some of these folks hit their eighth decade.

"I hope we develop a national tournament since we are the ones with time now," Dyer says. "I wanted to play in the league because I qualify age-wise. And I am OK with letting the whole world know where I fit in."

Dyer won't pursue her goal of getting a national tournament at the expense of the real reason she is playing.

"What I want from the league is to develop the three 'F's," she says. "Fun, friendship and fitness."