ESCANABA — Last weekend, local Escanaba tennis courts — at the Escanaba High School, Royce Park and Veteran’s Park — played host to the 74th Annual Michigan-Wisconsin Tennis Open Tournament.

While Saturday’s singles’ competition went on as scheduled, Sunday’s doubles’ end of the tournament — for the most part — was dampened by mother nature.

Despite the Sunday morning and afternoon rain, Escanaba Eskymos boys tennis coach and tournament representative Tom Penegor said the whole weekend was still enjoyable.

“Things went really well,” Penegor said. “Saturday was a good day. The weather was warm, sunny and humid, and we played our singles matches.”

“It’s nice to get out. It was just a good time. Not only is it about tennis, it’s about getting together, talking about the past and socializing. It was a good day that way, also.”

Compared to last year’s COVID-affected turnout, participation was back on the rise for the 2021 event said Penegor.

“Last year when it was such a bad year with all the virus things going on and everything, we still had the tournament which kept our streak going. This year was our 74th year,” he said. “But the numbers were really low last year. I think we were in the mid-40s. Then, this year we were in the mid-70s.

“We had a lot more people playing this year than what we did last year, but we’re still not back to where we have been. Four or five years ago we were in the low hundreds. So, that’s what we’re shooting for to be 110 or 120, that’s a good number for us.”

Penegor added that ongoing work at the Ludington Park — where the event headquarters are usually placed — courts eliminated those courts from use for this year’s event. Though, with the numbers in the 70s, it worked out in the end. He is hopeful that once the courts are completed and ready for play, they can be put to use next year with participant numbers hopefully on the rise.

In most years, the tournament coincides with the Art in the Park event, leading to a special atmosphere of people, tents and exhibitions, Penegor said.

“People just love coming down there,” he said. “If you get too warm, you can just go over to the beach and go swimming! It’s just a great venue and that’s probably the nicest place to play tennis in the Upper Peninsula is right there in Ludington Park. In that venue, in that setting, it’s just beautiful. And people want to come here to play there.”

Penegor also made note of all the people that helped to make the tournament possible for this year.

“You’ve got Denny Luenberg who has been doing this for just such a long time,” he said. “He’s put his whole life into this and into tennis. He’s been a real strong bond here to keep this going and helping us out and really running this tournament.

“We also wanted to thank Sue Moir. She was down there and helped Denny with the brackets and organized who’s playing on what courts and stuff like that. It’s a little more complicated than the average person thinks. You’ve got to figure out the times, where there going to play, especially when you only have eight courts to use.”

Penegor also thanked the City of Escanaba — in particular, Kim Peterson and Rick Larson — for their hard work in readying the courts and assistance in the applications that came in for the event.

When Sunday morning came, the courts were ready for action around nine. Then mother nature decided differently. Though it rained over the next several hours, all was not lost for the second half of the event.

“Finally, at 2:30 we had (the courts) all dry again,” said Penegor. “We had all the courts at the high school (where) we had matches going on and also at Royce. We played pretty much from 2:30 to 4:30. It was mostly locals, but we had a couple mixed doubles teams from Iron Mountain that played. They came and they wanted to come, and we had some younger gals that played in the 12-15 and 16-18 (brackets) that stuck around and wanted to play. They stuck around, still wanted to play and were still motivated. So that was nice.”

Results

Singles:

Men’s A Round Robin

Holden Ross (Iron River) def. Brett Girard (Marquette); 6-2, 6-4

Girard def. Hayden Drury (Marquette); 6-3, 6-4

Drury def. Ross; 6-3, 6-4

Men’s B

Dave Guillard (Newberry) def. Kirk Bruno (Rapid River); 6-0, 6-0

Boys 16-18

Isaac Makie (Escanaba) def. Dawson Williams (Escanaba); 6-1, 6-4

Girls 16-18 Round Robin

Sophia Derkos (Escanaba) def. Alexandra Levra, Isabella Kantola (Negaunee)

Girls 12-15

Alexis Hammerstron (Marquette) def. Samantha Manninen (Escanaba); 6-1, 6-4

Women’s Doubles

Codi Jenshak (Escanaba)-Braedon Bosilovitz def. Tamara Penegor-Mankiewicz (Gaylord)-Megan Marenger (Escanaba); 6-2, 6-4

Girls 12-15 Doubles

Maddie Frustaglio (Negaunee)-Olivia Lunseth def. Brooke Furmanski-Manninen; 6-2, 6-3

Girls 16-18 Doubles

Derkos-Gracie Wickham (Escanaba) def. Kantola-Levra; 6-1, 6-4