U.S. Fed Cup Team Hoping To Knock Off Champs At Saddlebrook Next Weekend

(From left to right) United States’ Kayla Day, Coach Lisa Raymond, Bethanie Mattek-Sands, Alison Riske, Shelby Rogers, CoCo Vandeweghe and Captain Kathy Rinaldi after clinching the overall victory over Germany at the 2017 Fed Cup tie between the United States and Germany in Maui, HI on February 12. (Photo: Andrew Ong/USTA)

Putting together a Federation Cup team is akin to fielding a lineup in almost any sport.

You find the best players, who are currently playing the best, who have earned the right to be out there, and you put them on the court.

For United State Fed Cup first-time captain Kathy Rinaldi, that means Coco Vandeweghe, Shelby Rogers, Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Lauren Davis.

Rinaldi selected her team last week during a stop at Saddlebrook Resort, which will host the Federation Cup by BNP Paribas World Group Semifinal this weekend in front of what could be a sellout crowd.

A temporary 3,500-seat stadium will be constructed around one of the resort’s Har-Try Classic Green Clay courts.

Kevin O’Connor, president of Saddlebrook International Sports, said Saddlebrook’s reputation, combined with a tennis community buoyed by active USTA programs at Hunter’s Green, Tampa Palms, Arbor Greene and West Meadows, made the area the perfect choice to host the event.

“This is the highest level of team tennis,’’ says O’Connor. “This is like what most of the local community does with the USTA team tennis. Imagine one of the best communities in the U.S. for organized tennis. To have the pinnacle of team events in your backyard, it’s a no brainer and very exciting.”

The best-of-five match series begins on Saturday with two singles matches beginning at 11:30 a.m.. Then, on Sunday, the teams will play two reverse singles matches beginning at 10:30 a.m., as well as the doubles match.

The semifinal showdown will feature one team, the U.S., trying to reclaim its former glory. The 17-time champion hasn’t won the Fed Cup since 2000.

One the other hand, the defending champ Czech Republic is trying to maintain its status as the best women’s team in the world, as winners of five of the last six titles.

The U.S. is 39-6 all-time in Fed Cup ties (or matches) played at home, and is 147-36 overall.

“The atmosphere for these matches will be electric,’’ Rinaldi says. “There’s something about playing for your country that brings out the best in the players. To see the fans, with their faces painted, the colored wigs
 to hear the national anthem, there’s nothing like it.”

A few weeks ago, Rinaldi, whose son Duke Stunkel Jr. is an outfielder for the University of South Florida baseball team, said her team was the clear underdog. But, that may have changed once the Czech Republic revealed it would be sending an inexperienced  lineup of Fed Cup reserves.

Already without two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova, who is still recovering from a December knife attack during a burglary that left her with an injured left hand, the Czechs also go without the other three players who led them to the Fed Cup title last year.

World No. 3 Karolina Pliskova, No. 18 Barbora Strycova and No. 2 doubles player Lucie Safarova have all declined to play, citing minor injuries or scheduling issues.

In their place, the Czech Republic is sending Pliskova’s twin sister Kristyna and Marketa Vondrousova, who will be making their Fed Cup debuts, and Katerina Siniakova and Denia Allertova, who have played one Fed Cup doubles match.

Siniakova is the highest rated of the Czechs, at No. 38, while Pliskova is No. 54. Allertova (107) and Vondrousova (233) are outside of the Top 100.

Ratings matter less, however, when you are playing for your country, Rinaldi says. Last year, the Netherlands, without a single player in the top 100, beat four-time champion Russia, which was competing with three players in the top 35, including Maria Sharapova.

Started in 1963 as the women’s version of the men’s Davis Cup, Federation Cup tennis is the world’s largest annual international team competition in women’s sports, as roughly 100 teams from across the globe compete. It is marked by patriotism and raucous, festive crowds who roundly cheer for their country, and the atmosphere is completely different from the typical intense quiet you might see on television. Loudly celebrating in between points is not only allowed, it is encouraged.

“You can really feel the enthusiasm,’’ Rinaldi said. “In Hawaii (for the U.S.’s 4-0 quarterfinal win over Germany), the fans were loud and behind us, and we expect it to be the same way at Saddlebrook.”

United States’ captain Kathy Rinaldi gets excited about a point at the 2017 Fed Cup tie between the United States and Germany in Maui, HI on February 11. (Photo: Andrew Ong/USTA)

Rinaldi, 49, reached the quarterfinals of the French Open as a 14-year-old and has trained at Saddlebrook.  A three-time winner on the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) tour, and once ranked as high as No. 7 in the world, Rinaldi was working in player development for the U.S. Tennis Association (USTA) when she was tasked with directing the Fed Cup team back to the top of the international heap after years of struggling.

Despite American tennis boasting the likes of Serena Williams, arguably the greatest player of all-time (and 16-1 in Fed Cup action), her sister Venus and more than a dozen top-100-ranked players, its shortcomings for more than a decade in the Fed Cup competition have been magnified in recent years by the absence of the top American women, mainly Serena and Venus currently ranked Nos. 2 and 12 respectively.

Even without the Williams sisters, or No. 10 Madison Keys, Rinaldi has secured the remaining top Americans. Vandeweghe is No. 24, Davis is 36 and Rogers is 49, moving up three spots after beating the top-seeded Keys and reaching the quarterfinals at the WTA’s Charleston stop April 3-5. Mattek-Sands is the No. 1 doubles player in the world,

“You want to try to find those players that are playing their best at the moment,’’ Rinaldi said. “You want to find players that you believe in, and American tennis has a lot of really good players and a lot that are playing really well right now. We currently have 18 in the top 100. That’s quite a number. Women’s tennis has really stepped up.”

The animated and fiery Vandeweghe, certain to be one of the crowd favorites this weekend, is playing the best tennis of her career.

She reached a career-high rating of No. 20 in the world earlier this year after her 2017 Australian Open, where she defeated then-world No. 1 Angelique Kerber before falling to Venus Williams in the semis.

Vandeweghe has won two WTA titles, and a doubles title as well, when she teamed with Mattek-Sands to win at Indian Wells in 2016.

This will be Vandeweghe’s sixth Fed Cup tie (or team match), and she is 3-0 in doubles  and 3-3 in singles.

Davis, who won her first WTA title this year, the ASB Classic in Auckland, New Zealand, is returning to Fed Cup for the first time since 2015, and is 1-0 in doubles and 0-1 in singles.

Rogers, who has reached two WTA quarterfinals this year, is playing in her second consecutive Fed Cup tie. She made her debut in Hawaii, teaming with Mattek-Sands in doubles.

Mattek-Sands became the No. 1-rated doubles player in the world in January with a win at Brisbane, followed by the Australian Open title. Mattek-Sands has 25 career WTA doubles titles, including the 2015 French Open and 2016 U.S. Open. She is undefeated in Fed Cup doubles action, winning all six of her matches, and is 2-6 in Fed Cup singles. She was on the last U.S. team to make the finals in 2010.

The winner at Saddlebrook advances to the Fed Cup final Nov. 11-12. It will meet the winner of the Belarus-Switzerland tie being played this weekend in Minsk, Belarus.

Tickets to the action at Saddlebrook were going fast but still available as of our press time. To try and purchase, visit USTA.com/fedcup or call (888) 334-USTA (8782).

Search For Hailey Ends Sadly

Hailey Acierno

The body of New Tampa teen Hailey Acierno was found by Tampa police Friday morning in Flatwoods Park, two miles south of her family’s home in Arbor Greene.

Hailey, a 17-year-old junior, had been missing for 10 days since not showing up for school at Wharton on March 28.

“We have found Hailey,” said Tampa Police Chief Eric Ward, somberly. “It’s not the outcome we had hoped for.”

Ward said Hailey was found near a section of the 5,500-acre Flatwoods Park she liked to visit. The park extends from Bruce B. Downs Blvd. all the way to Morris Bridge Rd.

Tampa police Chief Eric Ward.

“We believe she took her own life,” Ward said. He did not disclose any other details, but said there was no suspicion of foul play.

Hailey was found by officers on bikes, who were able to get into the wooded areas. Ward said Hailey was not found in an area that was common for pedestrian traffic.

“You could walk that path 100 times and never locate her,” Ward said.

Searchers had launched an extensive effort on Thursday to find Hailey, as Flatwoods Park was shut down and scoured.

 

Quail Hollow Golf Course Inches Ever Closer To Being Replaced By Homes

Next year, if Pasco’s Board of County Commissioners approves the plan, the Quail Hollow Golf & Country Club golf course will be replaced by 400 homes.

Quail Hollow Golf & Country Club, which opened in 1965, continues to inch closer towards extinction.

On March 9, the Pasco County Development Review Committee (DRC) voted to okay a zoning change and move forward plans to convert the 18-hole golf course into a residential community of nearly 400 multi-family homes. The Dade City courthouse was filled with current Quail Hollow residents who objected to the plan, to no avail.

“Bottom line, this is terrible for our community,’’ said Jack Diamond, who lives on Golf Course Loop.

The DRC didn’t agree, by a 4-1 vote.  The only member to vote against the plan was director of planning Chris Williams.

The project now seeks approval from the Pasco Board of County Commissioners, which meets next on Wednesday, April 12, 11 a.m, although the agenda for that meeting had not been set at our press time.

Andre Carollo’s Pasco Office Park LLC, the owner of the golf course (located at 6225 Old Pasco Rd.), was represented at the DRC meeting by New Port Richey land-use attorney Barbara Wilhite.

Carollo has been seeking to rezone the property from R1, which allows for one home per lot on 20,000-sq.-ft. lots, to a Master Planned Unit Development (MPUD), which would allow for homes on 4,000–sq.-ft. lots.

Most of the Quail Hollow residents in attendance at the Dade City Courthouse, as well as a number from adjoining neighborhoods, argued that 400 homes being built on the 80 or so acres of the 175-acre site was too dense, and that they would lose the green space they had bought into when purchasing their homes.

“You can’t stop progress,’’ said Scott Winter of Country Club Rd. “But, let’s be realistic about the amount of homes you can put on here.”

Wilhite said she and her staff did everything possible to appease local residents’ concerns while meeting all of the requirements from the county.

The golf course, which closed in 2008 during the economic downturn, was purchased for $1.7-million in 2010 by Carollo and reopened in 2011 after an extensive renovation that was well received.

But in 2015, plans were first disclosed  to plow over the course to build homes. In Jan. 2016, according to Wilhite, a rezoning request was filed seeking permission to build 400 detached homes and townhouses over the golf course, with room set aside for a day care center and a 30,000-sq.-ft. office building.

In April of 2016, Wilhite said a number of changes were made to the plan, including removing the townhomes, removing some residential units from the north end of the project and replacing it with flood draining and open space, and extending buffers between the existing homes and new homes.

A meeting was held with residents in May, and Wilhite said her team continued to work hard with the existing homeowners associations to gain their support for the plan.

“We agreed to a binding conceptual plan,” Wilhite said. “We’ve never done that before…those are the commitments we are making.”

Also, Wilhite said the developer is improving Old Pasco Rd. by adding two turn lanes onto Boom Boom Dr., which leads into Quail Hollow. “We’re quite proud of what we’ve done,’’ she said.

To address potential flooding — one of the bigger concerns raised and also a concern voiced by the DRC at the last meeting in January — Wilhite added Gregg Singleton of Singleton Engineering to her team. He presented a stormwater summary to the DRC and said there were plans to alleviate any flooding issues.

“This is just the first step,’’ he said, while offering an overview of the drainage flow on the property. He also promised detailed reviews as the project progressed, and added, “If we find issues, we will remediate them.”

Still, current Quail Hollow residents like Michael Morgan, who said he bought his home on Sandbagger Lane 40 years ago because of the golf course, were not pleased, and cited are other issues as well — traffic on Old Pasco Rd., a two-lane road, which also will be home to new combined middle and high school campus in August, and the loss of privacy for which the homeowners feel they paid a premium, as well as higher taxes.

“Why bother having zoning if every 10 years we change it?,’’ asked James Luczynski, who also argued that traffic and density would devalue the home prices of current residents.

Two DRC members — assistant county administrators Cathy Pearson and Flip Mellinger — who expressed support for the residents at the last meeting seemed satisfied with Wilhite’s updated report.

“I feel for the homeowners, but I also feel the developer has done everything he could to make it right,’’ Mellinger said.

Wiregrass Ranch High Grad Is Taking A Bite Out Of The Big Apple

Angelica Vicens has been performing since she was a little kid, and is hoping to find success in New York City as an actor, writer and producer.

Wesley Chapel’s Angelica Vicens isn’t on TV or in the movies. Yet.

However, her story is a familiar one.

You’ve seen her before, or those like her — you know, the young aspiring actor/writer/producer, who chases her dreams all the way to New York, NY, who works a day job to pay the rent, spends the rest of her time in one of the Big Apple’s many theaters hustling to put something together. And yes, she shares one of those tiny, one-bedroom, overpriced flats where the living room and kitchen are interchangeable and where she dreams of making it big.

That’s Angelica, a 20-year-old who just made her director/producer debut earlier this month, just a mere three years after graduating from Wiregrass Ranch High (WRH).

With her parents, Angel and Zulma, in the audience, Angelica recently completed a four-show run of “Twisted: The Untold Story of a Royal Vizier,” a popular musical by Team Starkid productions, a Chicago-based theatre troupe known for its musical comedies.

“Twisted” parodies the Disney movie “Aladdin,” but told from the antagonist Jafar’s point of view.

Angelica produced four shows March 31-April 2, at The Producer’s Club, a black box “Off-Off Broadway” theater on W. 44th St.  in Manhattan. Black box theaters are typically simple and square with black walls, resembling a black box, with seating for roughly 50-100 for a production that relies on the actors to create the setting and atmosphere, rather than props and elaborate stage decorations.

While she also has auditioned multiple times for parts in plays, Angelica wanted to try her hand at being on the other side. It didn’t matter than she was only 20 and at the very beginning of her career — she says she was ready for the challenge. A longtime fan of Team Starkid’s productions, she decided she wanted to do a version of “Twisted.”

“I’ve wanted to do this all my life,’’ she says. “Might as well go for it.’’

She reached out to Team Starkid for the rights to do “Twisted.” Her father Angel, who said the family has always supported Angelica’s dream, paid the $400 for the rights, and after signing the contract, pre-production began last December for a bare-bones production of a musical that has had nearly 1.8-million views on YouTube.

Angelica Vicens directs the actors in preparation for her debut as a director/producer in the “Off-Off Broadway” production of “Twisted.”

In January, although it was an unpaid gig, Angelica said more than 150 actors applied for a role in her show, and 16 made the cut, 17 if you count the replacement she had to find when the lead bowed out midway through rehearsals.

“That was a setback,’’ she said, “and a learning experience.”

She adds, however, that all of the challenges were well worth the experience.

“For me, it’s the beginning of my own personal career,’’ she said. “As an actor, you’re auditioning for other people’s projects. This is the first step seeing if I can do (my own project), and so far it has been a really great experience,’’ Angelica says. “I’m realizing that I do have potential to direct and put on comedies.”

Angel said Angelica was always ready to perform, even as a child. She would have friends over to watch a movie in fourth grade, and they would then perform it afterwards. In the fifth grade at Sand Pine Elementary, she and her friends put together an after-school show for their classmates.

“It was obviously her passion,’’ says Angel, who plays bass guitar (with Zulma, who plays guitar) on Sundays at St. Mark the Evangelist Catholic Church in New Tampa during 12:30 Spanish mass. “We are not surprised at all that she is doing this.”

Angelica’s brother Luis, a WRH junior, also is a talented singer and musician, and plays the drums, piano and bass guitar.

Considering Angel and Zulma played in popular bands in their native Puerto Rico, it’s only natural the Vicens kids would take early to performing.

Angelica was in the show choir from first grade through sixth grade with New Tampa’s Show Kidz, performed in the drama club and played the violin in Orchestra at John Long Middle School and also performed in the Drama Club at WRH.

She played the Marimba in the school band, and her junior year played Grizabella in the Jansen Dance Project (located in Tampa Palms) production of “Cats.”

While many her age went off to sort out their futures on college campuses, Angelica followed her passion to New York City, where just two weeks after graduating from WRH, she enrolled at the American Musical Dramatic Academy (AMDA), a college conservatory for the performing arts located on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. She completed that program in 2015.

“I don’t mean to brag,’’ Angelica says, chuckling, “but I’m doing what I always said I was going to be doing.”

It was at AMDA that she discovered Carol Burnett, Ethel Merman and “The Dick Van Dyke Show,”and fell in love with old variety comedy.

“I wanted to find something parallel to that in modern times,’’ she said.

She says she has binge-watched all 42 seasons of “Saturday Night Live,” as well as “Cheers,” “Frazier” and “Seinfield.” 

Whether as a writer, producer, singer or actor, Angelica knows she is where she wants to be. Her dream job would be working for a variety show, like “Saturday Night Live,”or becoming a writer for a late night talk show.

“A lot of friends of mine who always said they were going to be actors, they don’t really understand the reality of the situation,’’ Angelica says. “A lot of people trying to be in the industry believe acting is reaching a certain amount of fame and success. They think if you’re recognized on a world level, you are an actor. But, it’s about the craft, no matter the level.”

While honing her own craft, Angelica takes online business classes through Florida International University, and works 40 hours a week in the NBC Universal (NBCU) gift shop in Rockefeller Plaza’s Comcast Building.

“I’d love to be an NBC page, and be a part of that program,’’ Angelica said.

Until then, she’ll continue to sing, act, write and produce, and take as big a bite out of the Big Apple as she can.

“She does it all,’’ Angel says, proudly.

Gator Makes Selling A Home A Little Tougher For One Local Realtor

Although we live in an area with homes and businesses going up all around, the last few months have been a reminder to some, like Wesley Chapel resident & Realtor Nikki Spirakis, that the Wesley Chapel/New Tampa area is still flush with wildlife, leading to some interesting recent encounters.

When Wesley Chapel’s Nikki Spirakis was learning to become a Realtor, she thinks she might have missed the day they taught about dodging alligators while showing homes.

She could have used that training on March 29. Spirakis and a client were on their way to look at a home in Heritage Isles on Cross Creek Blvd. in New Tampa when they noticed an alligator approximately 6-feet long heading across the lawn and towards the front door of a house just two doors down from the one she was about to show.

“They didn’t cover that in real estate school,’’ she says.

Spirakis stopped her car to, naturally, take photos with her cell phone. The gator eventually made it to the front door and hunkered down. “It was like it was waiting for someone to open the door,’’ Spirakis says.

The gator hung out for a few minutes, then made its way back to the front of the house and moseyed towards the back of the house. While the houses on the other side of the street backed up to water, the alligator headed in the opposite direction towards nothing but dry land and more homes.

Nikki Spirakis

Spirakis, who works for Keller Williams, says she and some of the other neighbors weren’t quite sure what to do.

“We definitely discussed calling somebody, but I was like, this is Florida,’’ Spirakis said. “As it was walking off, everyone just figured we had our funny story for the day.”

Spirakis says her client, who had two young children along with her, wasn’t quite as fearless. While she hopped out of the car to take a look, she quickly hopped back in with her children.

They proceeded to the home Spirakis was showing, but the Realtor knew there would be no sale that day.

“She was wigged out,’’ Spirakis says, laughing. “She made sure the door was closed behind us when we went into the house.”

She did joke to one of her children that she would be a tasty morsel for the gator, but the trip around the home took less than five minutes.

That alligator was the first one she had ever seen in five years living in Florida, other than at Busch Gardens,’’ Spirakis says. “And, the house she was looking at backed up to water. We zoomed right through it and she was like, ‘I don’t like it. I can’t live in this neighborhood.’”

Spirakis says that none of the other Realtors she works with had ever experienced a gator squatter. Realtor Gail Beskid, who works with Spirakis, has said she is going to one day write a book about all her adventures during a decades long career as a real estate agent. While Spirakis’ recent encounter with hippie squatters  — “I could hear the music and smell the incense right away” — may not make Beskid’s book, her reptilian encounter surely will.

“Gail told me I definitely get a chapter for this one,’’ Spirakis says.

It wasn’t the first wildlife moment for Spirakis lately, either. A resident of the new Windsor at Meadow Pointe community off Meadow Pointe Blvd. at the eastern end of S.R. 56 in Wesley Chapel, Spirakis and her husband Erik Hajek recently encountered a cow that walked by their front yard after escaping from a nearby ranch off S.R. 56.

While the neighbors came out to watch the cow walk across the street, cowboys on horses showed up, eventually wrangling the animal and loading it into a trailer.

And, the day after Spirakis avoided the gator, a giant white owl perched itself on a fence about 10 feet away and watched her play tennis.

“I’m on quite a roll lately,’’ she joked.