Denver Hits the $40,000 Mark ... After squaring up all the bills and accounting, Racquet for the Cure organizers were pleased to present a check for $6,700 to the Denver Affiliate of Komen for the Cure on February 21.

The handoff marked the second most successful fundraising year for the founding event and brought the tournament's cumulative nine-year donation total to $40,000. The benchmark also sets the perfect goal for Denver's 10th anniversary year, with hopes of adding another $10,000 in 2009 to reach $50,000 at the decade mark.

Although there are larger fundraisers across the country, Denver's original Racquet for the Cure continues to enjoy success in its efforts to introduce more women to the sport, as well as generate funds and awareness for an important community program. With continued and generous local support from players and sponsors alike, the tenth anniversary should be another successful and exciting year for Colorado.

Congratulations to all the 2008 winners — including the Denver Affiliate of Komen for the Cure, multiple "grand prize" recipients, and everyone who selected from among the equipment & accessories lineup provided by generous sponsors. Thanks to everyone for another great event!

Setting up draws ahead of time, tournament directors Jo Shattuck and Marcia Richards are focused and alert ... by late Saturday, it's a different story. Photos: John Foust.

Denver's original "Racquet for the Cure" event was developed as a one-day, women's only competition (hosted on a Saturday in February), preceded by a Friday evening Mixed Doubles kick-off fundraiser. It has since grown to include added benefit divisions, while retaining the "women's only" Saturday format.

After the benefit events on the preceding evenings, and a variety of exhibitions, clinics and challenge fundraisers with invited guests, pros and celebrities (as available), it's all-day team playoffs on Saturday.

Entrants are assigned to squads containing a player in each of the Open, A, B and C skill categories, plus doubles teams in Open and A – then the fun begins!

Each team player is issued a "marker" (colored ribbons, bandanas) that identifies them to each other, and the various drop-downs begin. No matter how early in the day you might lose a match, you're going to keep playing!

From the standard divisions, players drop into satellite brackets like "Optimistic Open", "Alternate A's", "Wanna Bees" and "Cyber C's". At the awards dinner, it's the novices who get to select their prizes first, and the squad that won the most total matches is named the team winner.

To see articles about each year's event, and to view available photo galleries and results, follow the upper left links. And read the full "how to" organizer to start your own Racquet for the Cure event!

How to ... Set the Teams
Teams are formed by assigning one singles entrant from each level of play; an Open player, an A, a B, a C and Novice. Depending on the pool of players, you might end up building a team with one strong Open player and two B players, as opposed to one Open + one A + one B. Do the best you can to construct even teams if you don’t have enough players in specific skill divisions.

For doubles you can pair the Open Player and A player from each team and do the same with the B and C players from each team. Or you can offer "doubles only" as a division entry and pair up players who only want to play doubles and assign them to teams separately. 

Once the teams are set, you'll assign each team a different color bandana or whatever you choose to identify the teams (patches, armbands, wristbands). This gives everyone a chance to easily find and meet their teammates.

To score points for the team, we keep a tally as each game is played, using this scoring format: win=10 pts, loss in 2=5 pts, loss in a tiebreaker=7 pts, 3 pts awarded for playing the match.  If someone forfeits  10 points are given to the winner and none to the forfeiting player.  Add up all the points at the end of the day and that team is your winner!

How to ... Do the Draws
Usually the tournament is one day, so we try to schedule the entrants for as much playing time as possible. This also depends on how many players you have against the number of courts available. 

An Olympic, or satellite, format is one way to go, or playing for points in the division, like they do at Masters events is another way. If necessary, you can shorten the matches to two games to 11, tiebreaker to 7. Sometimes we allow for up to three drop down divisions so players get at least three games, plus their doubles matches. All-in-all, at the end of the day, no one complains about not getting enough court time!