Naples Daily News, June 7th by Tom Rife:
It's on to the regionals for a group of local men who have claimed county men's 8.0 USTA team honors.
Team captain Art Nowakowski assembled the group two years ago with the support of Heritage Bay Golf and Country Club tennis director Tony Martin.
"During our first year as a team, we came close to winning, but lost in the district playoff very badly," Nowakowski said. "This year we had a winter season record of 7-2 and in the spring season we had a much better performance with an 8-1 record, prevailing in the playoff over the Pelican Bay Park team 4-1."
Now the Heritage Bay team proceeds on to the regionals in Bradenton on July 13-15. The regional winner will go to Daytona to compete for the state championship.
"Our team has strong singles players and strong doubles players," Nowakowski added. "All my team players can perform well from Court 1 to Court 3. We have a very strong relationship among our team members. We kid each other a lot and have great fun playing these matches and seeing each other's during practice and during our weekly match competitions. There is nothing like it — nice people enjoying this great sport."
In the picture from top left corner to the right: "Big" Jeff Hossler, Paul Kwasniewski-Christy, Team Captain "Polish" Art Nowakowski, "Huge" Mark Shepherd, "Incredible Forehand" John Ramsey, "Rocky Balboa" Steve Campolo, "The British Gent" David Palmer, "New Yorker" George Newton, "All business" Tom Rizzo, "No Nickname yet" Serge Rampezzotti. Not in the picture: "Irish Man" Rick McGrath and " Latin Blood" Orlando J. Ferrer, Sr. CONGRATULATIONS!!!