2011 Bank of the West Classic Recap

For the past 2 weeks, aside from running around like a chicken with my head cut-off, I have been working on the Bank of the West Classic. I've explained a bit about the tournament, its history, and its importance, but I wanted to share some of the highlights of the event with you. 


When people ask me about sorority recruitment, I describe it as planning a wedding for each day for six days in a row. Well, take recruitment and put it on steroids, then you will have a professional tennis tournament. Sleep is not an option. Breaks do not exist. Rest is unheard of. Basically, take your normal life and throw it out the window for a bit.


This year, within the tournament, we had several first time ancillary events. Perfect! More planning to be done. We had our Cortiglia Ladies Day and our Tennis Tailgate as two new ways for fans to come enjoy a day of tennis, friendship, and fun. Along the way, we also had a few mishaps (as with all events) including food delivery errors such as the driver only picking up bags of chips to feed 200 volunteers, golf cart slip ups such as running smack into the man-made bleachers, match defaults such as Cibulkova withdrawing from the semi-finals due to an abdominal injury, and Skybox seating woes such as not having enough seats for tickets sold. Nonetheless, we were able to overcome these issues by working together as a team and figuring out a way to correct these little misfortunes. And to dote, we had a record year in sales with a sellout crowd on Friday evening for the Serena vs. Sharapova quarterfinal match.


All in all, the tournament ran rather smoothly and everyone had a great time working together. Our SF team shared many a laughs throughout the week as we watched all of our hard work over the summer come together. I also enjoyed working with the Miami staff and rekindling those relationships that were started years ago.


Below are a few snapshots from the week's events. If you weren't able to join this year, I hope to see you in 2012...

Finals: Bartoli vs Serena

Kevin from the WTA dressed in the Bear head

Sabine Lisicki posing with the Bear's head

Harper For Kids Family Day

Coach Wooden's Pyramid for Success

skill

hard Work

stadium court 

WTA banners

more banners of the "glam-slam" players

USTA Fast Serve Booth

IMG Skybox 

sell-out crowd

Quarters: Serena vs Sharapova

Sharapova to serve

Serena to return

Cheers to a successful tournament and looking forward to making next year bigger & better!