On Sunday afternoon, the Vineyard’s tennis community took part in its third annual Island Cup, featuring a series of doubles matches between MVRHS tennis players and longtime students of the game.
It was the first edition of the tournament since 2018, which didn’t run in 2019, and then was put on further pause due to the pandemic. Organizer Connie McHugh has been the director of the tennis program at Airport Fitness since 1996, where the Island Cup is hosted. She wanted to bring it back this year.
She used to coach at MVRHS as well, and came up with the idea as a fun way for the kids to prepare for the varsity season, and for the tennis community to get together. “It’s what you do when you’re programming things,” McHugh explained.
Going into the Cup, McHugh had her money on the adults to capture their third consecutive title, and she ended up being right, with the adults taking five of six matches against the high schoolers. Jacob Riis and Kert Kleeman won the second men’s doubles match for MVRHS to get them on the board, against Skip Dostal and Patrick Caine.
“It was a great time,” McHugh said after the Cup. “All the kids that came got to play … Mission accomplished.” The Cup started at 12:30, and went all the way to 5 pm.
