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Mardy Fish Children's Foundation

King of the Hill

“King of the Hill” Schedule, Groupings Announced For 2025

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The 2025 “King of the Hill” schedule of play and groups have been announced by KOTH founder and organizer Gigi Casapu,

The event starts on Thursday January 16th at 6:00 p.m. at The Boulevard Tennis Club with the first round of the open division.

Once again, as tradition, the winner and runner-up of the “Open” division will receive a main draw wild card entry into the Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships USTA Pro Circuit ITF World Tennis Tour event and compete for a world ATP Tour ranking. The 2025 event will be held April 21-27 at the Vero Beach Tennis & Fitness Club at Timber Ridge.

Winners of the 2024 King of the Hill:

50’s Division – Aldo Burga

40’s Division – Lennart Jonason

Open Division – James Van Deinse

Here are the groups and the schedule of play for the 2025 King of the Hill event:

Thursday January 16th at 6:00 p.m. first round of the open division on four courts:

Group Mardy Fish: Christian Docter (Sea Oaks), Ching Wang (Vero Beach/Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation), Stefan Hartman (Melbourne), Matteo Masala (John’s Island)

Group Andy Roddick: Chase Perez Blanco (Vero Beach), Joseph Van Deinse (Vero Beach TC), Anton Loef (John’s Island), Greg Orr (The Moorings)

Group Rafael Nadal: James Van Deinse (Vero Beach TC), Tyler Rios (Magnolia Lakes), Bernardo Feitosa (The Boulevard), Samuel Sippel (Orchid Island)

Group Andy Murray: Andrew Butz (Vero Beach), Yohann Prinsen (Twin Oaks), Pavel Zhdanov (John’s Island) Nathan Suranofsky (Windsor).

Great news for the open division. The winner and the runner-up will receive a wild card to play in the main doubles draw of The Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation – a USTA Professional Future Event scheduled in April.

Thursday January 23rd at 6:00 p.m. Semifinals of the 40’s and 50’s divisions, each division on two courts:

40’s Division

Group Andre Agassi: Lennart Jonason (John’s Island), Nathan Dickens (Melbourne), Erik Turnquist (Willoughby), Jony Leitenbauer (Windsor), 

Group Peter Sampras: Cullen DeWindt (Piper’s Landing), Dan Stover (          ), Ryan Lloyd (Stuart), David Schmook (The Legacy)

50’s Division

Group Ilie Nastase: Mikael Pernfors (Vero Beach), Henner Lenhardt (Sea Oaks), Michael Phelipa (Suntree CC), Mario Cobo (Mariner Sands)

Group Rod Laver: Aldo Burga (The Legacy), Joe Biedenharn (Sea Oaks), Emile DeCuba (Ocean Village), Karim Balagh (The Boulevard)

Thursday January 30th at 6:00 p.m. semifinals of the open division on two courts

Thursday February 6th at 6:00 p.m. –  50’s Division Final

Thursday February 13th at 6:00 p.m. –  40’s Division Final

Thursday February 20th at 6:00 p.m. –  Open Division Final

Please mark the dates in your calendar and enjoy a great King of the Hill season at the Boulevard T.C.

For more info e-mail at gcasapu@aol.com or text at 772-979-5582

James Van Deinse Wins “King of the Hill” Title, Earns Mardy Fish Main Draw Doubles Wild Card With Christian Docter

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James Van Deinse is establishing himself as probably the best tennis player in Vero Beach.

The 33-year-old teaching pro and co-owner of the Vero Beach Tennis & Fitness Club emerged victorious Thursday in the 29th annual “King of the Hill” tournament at The Boulevard tennis club, successfully winning the title among Treasure Coast area tennis pros.

Van Deinse swept all three sets played in doubles with each of the other three event finalists to finish with 18 total games won. Christian Docter, the teaching pro at the Sea Oaks Beach & Tennis Club, and long-time Vero Beach resident Robert Kowalczyk finished in a tie for second place with 13 games won while Vero Beach High School senior Mason Cisco finished in fourth place with 12 games won.

“I played some really good points in important moments, but I felt like a lot of the chips fell my way tonight,” said van Deinse after his victory. “We had some pivotal points really in every set. Every set was tight”

The victory for Van Deinse earned him a main draw doubles “wild card” entry into Vero Beach’s annual USTA Pro Circuit event, the $15,000 Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships to be held April 22-28 at his home club, the Vero Beach Tennis & Fitness Club at Timber Ridge. The Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation annually awards the “King of the Hill” winner and runner-up a spot in the doubles draw at this entry-level “minor league” professional tennis tournament played for ATP ranking points and prize money. Since Docter and Kowalczyk tied for second place, the 43-year-old Kowalczyk, a former college All-American at Cal-Berkeley who has played many pro events around the world in his career, forfeited the tie-breaking procedure to Docter to give the 27-year-old Madison, Wisconsin native a chance to play in a pro event for the first time in his career.

Said Docter of the opportunity to play in the Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships, “Just to get into a pro event, it’s what every tennis player dreams of as a kid. When you start playing, you want to go pro, and now this is the first chance to actually play against these guys who are doing it for a living. So I’m very blessed, I’m very fortunate, and I can’t wait for this opportunity.”

Said Van Deinse, “It’s not only a dream come true to play in the Futures event here and it’s at my home club, but on top of all that to play with Christian Docter, we actually have trained together almost seven days a week. And so we’ve been planning this for a year to try to play some of our best tennis at the right time so we can play together in this event, and I’m just thrilled. And it’ll be his first Futures event.”

It will mark the third time that Van Deinse will play in the Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships USTA Pro Circuit event. In 2017, when he first won “King of the Hill” title, he partnered with then Quail Valley Club pro Michael Alford but lost in the first round to Robert Galloway and Alexander Centenari. Galloway won the ATP Tour Delray Beach Open doubles title earlier this month and was a doubles quarterfinalist at the 2023 U.S. Open. Last year, partnering with KOTH runner-up Tyler Rios, he was defeated in the Mardy Fish first round to eventual champions Lorenzo Claverie of Italy and Peter Bertran of the Dominican Republic.

“I was a little bit unlucky that so far the two main draw doubles tournaments I’ve played in that tournament have been against guys who have gone on to do great things, but at the same time, it makes for a good story and it gives me experience,” said van Deinse. “So I’m hoping that if I get a good draw this tournament, I’ll have the experience from past years to be able to play some of my best tennis.”

The “King of the Hill” open division finals attracted a crowd of about 300 fans to The Boulevard. The event, run by Port St. Lucie teaching pro Gigi Casapu, annually benefits Youth Guidance of Vero Beach, the nonprofit organization serving children and young adults in Indian River County since 1973.

The Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships has been held in Vero Beach since 1995 and for the last eight years under the management of the Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation, the non-profit organization that benefits at-risk children in Indian River County and named for Vero Beach native son and 2004 Olympic silver medalist Mardy Fish. Recent participants have included current world Top 20 players Tommy Paul, Ben Shelton and Frances Tiafoe. For more information on the Mardy Fish tournament, go to www.MardyFishChildrensFoundation.org

WATCH the full interview with Van Deinse here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlHGGFpgU9s

WATCH the full interview with Docter here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMEA8HteVh0&t=10s

WATCH the full interview with Gigi Casapu here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plC0EmsXE1E

Christian Docter (left) and James Van Deinse

Who Will Earn The “King of the Hill” Wild Card Into The Mardy Fish USTA Futures Event?

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The finale of the 29th season of “King of the Hill” will be Thursday, February 22 at 6 pm at The Boulevard with the final of the “Open Division” that will decide which two players will earn the coveted main draw doubles wild card into the 2024 Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships $15,000 USTA Pro Circuit ITF World Tennis Tour event.

Since 2017, the Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation has annually awarded the winner and runner-up at the “Open” division of “King of the Hill” a main draw doubles wild card into Vero Beach’s pro men’s tennis tournament where they get to compete for ATP world ranking points and prize money.

Perhaps the favorite to win the Open division is James Van Deinse, the defending champion and the pro and co-owner of the Vero Beach Tennis & Fitness Club, where the 2024 Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships will be held April 22-28. Van Deinse, who also won “King of the Hill” in 2017 and played in the Mardy Fish Vero Beach Futures twice when it was an official ITF pro event in 2017 with Michael Alford and in 2023 with KOTH runner-up Tyler Rios. In 2017, he and Alford, then a pro at the Quail Valley Club, lost to Robert Galloway (the 2024 Delray Beach Open doubles champion) and Alex Centenari.

Robert Kowalcyzk, the 43-year-old long-time Vero Beach native who famously won back-to-back USTA National Boys 18s Clay Court Championships in the late 1990s, is looking to return to playing in the Mardy Fish Vero Beach Futures for the first time since 2018 when he played alongside Alford, who was the KOTH winner.

Christian Docter, the teaching pro at the Sea Oaks Beach & Tennis Club, finished one win shy on two occasions from getting a shot to play in the Mardy Fish doubles last year. He finished third in the KOTH final and then in the Mardy Fish “wild card” doubles tournament lost with Joseph van Deinse in the final to James Bragg and Ching Wang.

The fourth KOTH finalist is Mason Cisco, the Vero Beach high school senior who advanced to the final by one point in a tiebreaker with Wang in the KOTH semifinals. Cisco, who earned an ITF world junior ranking this summer while playing events in Europe, will play college tennis at Embry-Riddle University next year.

CLOCKWISE – Robert Kowalcyzk, Christian Docter, James van Deinse and Mason Cisco

“King of the Hill” For 2024 To Be Held Thursdays From January 11 – February 15

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The 29th annual “King of the Hill” pro tennis competition in Vero Beach will run January 11 through February 15 at The Boulevard Tennis Club.

The winner and the runner-up of the “Open Division” will once again, traditionally, receive a main draw doubles wild card into the $15,000 Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships USTA Pro Circuit event April 22-28 at the Vero Beach Tennis & Fitness Club in Vero Beach.

The following is the full schedule put forth by event organizer Gigi Casapu.

Thursday January 11th at 6:00 p.m. first round of the Open Division on four courts:

Group Mardy Fish: Robert Kowalczyk (Vero Beach), Christian Docter (Sea Oaks), Tyler Marengo (Quail Valley), Andrew Mignolet (Twin Oaks)

Group Andy Roddick: Joseph Van Deinse (Vero Beach T.C.), Kainoa Rosa (Orchid Island), Ching Wang (Sea Oaks), Jimmy Dunseith (Willoughby)

Group Rafael Nadal: James Van Deinse (Vero Beach T.C.), Anton Loef (John’s Island), Luca Cirenza (Moorings), Mason Cisco (Vero Beach)

Group Andy Murray: Tyler Rios (Magnolia Lakes), Yohann Prinsen (Twin Oaks), Stefan Hartman (Melbourne) Bernardo Feitosa (Vero Beach)

Thursday January 18th at 6:00 p.m. semifinals 40’s Division on two courts:

Group Andre Agassi: Lennart Jonason (John’s Island) Razvan Ilie (Vero Beach), Nathan Dickens (Melbourne), Erik Turnquist (Orchid Island)

Group Peter Sampras: Cullen DeWindt (Piper’s Landing), Billy Almeyda (Sea Oaks), Martin Illuzzi (Legacy), Michael Phelipa (Suntree C.C.)

Thursday January 25th at 6 p.m. semifinals open Division on two courts

Due to injuries and conflict of schedule the players in the 50’s Division, will play an Exhibition this year, featuring the best:

Mikael Pernfors (Vero Beach), Aldo Burga (Legacy), Joe Biedenharn (Sea Oaks) and Mario Cobo (Mariner Sands). 

The 50’s Division Exhibition is scheduled on Thursday February 1st at 6:00 p.m.  

Thursday February 8th at 6:00 p.m. – 40’s Division Final

Thursday February 15th at 6:00 p.m. – Open Division Final

The event benefits Youth Guidance of Vero Beach. Admission is $10 per person per session.

The winners of the 2023 King of the Hill were as follows

50’s Division – Mario Cobo (Mariner Sands)

40’s Division – Lennart Jonason (John’s Island)

Open Division – James Van Deinse (Vero Beach T.C.)

A review video of the event from 2023 can be found here: Vero Beach’s “King of the Hill” – One of the USA’s Best Local Tennis Events https://youtu.be/CfXUdD63BZg?si=Vg-SFIIoIGnMDPsp via @YouTube

James Van Deinse (winner) and Tyler Rios (runner-up) with Mardy Fish Futures tournament director Randy Walker

James Van Deinse Wins 2023 “King of the Hill” Open Division, Earns Mardy Fish Doubles Wild Card With Tyler Rios

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James Van Deinse of the Vero Beach Tennis & Fitness Club, and Tyler Rios of the Magnolia Lakes Club in Port St. Lucie, the winner and runner-up respectively at the annual “King of the Hill” tennis competition that concluded Thursday night at The Boulevard, have been awarded a main draw doubles wild card into the 2023 Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships, to be held April 24-30 in Vero Beach.

Van Deinse and Rios were awarded the wild card by the Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation, the operators of the Vero Beach $15,000 U.S. Tennis Association Pro Circuit and ITF World Tennis Tour event as part of an agreement with the “King of the Hill” (KOTH) competition and organizer Gigi Casapu to give a wild card entry into the professional event to the KOTH winner and runner-up. Held since 1996, the “King of the Hill” competition features tennis teaching professionals competing in doubles play to determine the top player in the area and to benefit Youth Guidance in Vero Beach as its charity.

With a crowd of over 400 fans watching, Van Deinse won a 7-6 tiebreaker by seven points to five alongside brother Joseph Van Deinse, also the owner and professional of the Vero Beach Tennis & Fitness Club, over Rios and Sea Oaks tennis pro Christian Docter to edge Rios for the title in the last of three sets played between the four finalists. Van Deinse, who also won the KOTH title in 2017, won all three sets he played Thursday night with all three of the other finalists.

“It feels amazing. It was some of my best tennis that I played today,” said Van Deinse. “I played some of my best tennis when I needed it the most.”

Van Deinse is fresh off playing the biggest tennis tournament of his career at the ATP Tour’s Challenger level event in Monterrey, Mexico, where he competed alongside several former top 25 world-ranked players. Van Deinse was able to play against world No. 130 ranked Yosuke Watanuki of Japan, fresh off advancing to the second round at the Australian Open. Van Deinse was defeated 6-0, 6-1 but said that the experience helped him in his King of the Hill final.

“It mostly prepared me to be sharp,” he said. “I felt like when a ball came at me quick tonight for a volley, or a return of serve, or whatever, I was ready for it, because I had practiced against a level that I wasn’t used to before.”

Van Deinse will get another opportunity on the professional tour stage when he competes in the main draw in doubles with Rios at the Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships, which is a level below the ATP Challenger level in the hierarchy of pro tennis. To boot, Van Deinse will be playing the tournament on the courts he owns and teaches on as the Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation will be hosting the event at the Vero Beach Tennis & Fitness Club.

“I can’t wait,” said Van Deinse of playing the Mardy Fish at his home club. “It would’ve been cool to play with (brother) Joseph, but I’m so excited to play with Tyler. He’s a nice guy, great player, and, hopefully, we can get a win.”

Van Deinse and Rios will play their first-round doubles match against world-ranked ATP touring professionals on Tuesday, April 24 at 6:00 pm. Rios, a first-time KOTH finalist, will be competing in a pro tennis tournament for the first time in his career.

WATCH the James Van Deinse post-match interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BxgwUYDLiI