A Couple of Bad Aces

An amateur tennis team based at the St. Andrew’s Parks & Playground facility won a state championship in Aiken over the Memorial Day weekend.
Captained by local plumbing and gas contractor Mark Riling, The East Coast Bad Aces defeated a team from Anderson 3-2 to take home the trophy, the only one earned by a team based at the Playground Road courts.
The Bad Aces, which is often pronounced differently, competed in the men’s 18 and over 3.0 ranking championship. The USTA’s amateur ranks begins at a 2.5 ranking, then increase with skill level and wins by half-points up to 6.0, and onto the professional ranks.
Riling pointed out with understandable pride that theirs was the only team in the championship that went undefeated through the entire season.
Ten members of the team made the trip, and played matches against four different teams over the three-day weekend. While all 10 played, only eight competed in the championship match.
Riling and local teacher Jason Wheless played doubles, as did local entrepreneur Bradley Smith and David Lowe, who runs an expanding business selling drink mixes to restaurants and bars as far away as Miami.
Jeff Alexander, a Kiawah club manager, teamed with MUSC medical student Anand Achanti in doubles, while former alternative rocker Stuart Hill and health physician Patrick Lovegrove competed in singles.
The other teammates who played the previous two days were Mike Herrin and Randy Johnson.
Wheless, a father of three and the head of the culinary department at West Ashley High School, was taken aback by the team’s success.
“It was surreal; all of a sudden it was upon us,” said Wheless, adding that he knew they had a “good” team from regularly practicing three days a week. “It was a great feeling, all that hard work paying off.”
Alexander, one of the elder statesmen of the team at 59, said he was going to focus, in part, on increasing his fitness in preparation for the next step, the sectionals tournament in Lexington, July 26-28.
“I’ve got to think that playing in late July, in Lexington, that fitness will be key,” laughed the married father of two.