First Washington Kastles match

A few weeks ago (the day after Molly got back from camp), we took the girls to their first professional sporting event. We went to see a Washington Kastles match.

If you are not familiar with the Kastles, they are a World Team Tennis team. While most of professional tennis revolves around individual performances in the ATP and WTA, World Team Tennis offers pros and fans a team format and a lot of fun.

We went to see the Kastles on Family Day. That meant they had a USTA Play Day in the stadium for kids a few hours before the match. Both Molly and Leah took part.

USTA Family Day

Not only did the kids get to play on the court, but Nick Kyrgios (currently #16 in the world) came out to play with the kids. He started with the court next to the girls, but got interrupted when our kids lost their ball and Leah ran onto his court to get it.

Nick Kyrgios interruption

Then Nick made it onto their court. Yes, that’s Molly playing tennis with Nick Kyrgios.

Playing with Nick

Leah knows to stand in ready position when Nick Kyrgios is hitting the ball to you.

Ready position

Nick then moved on to the next court, and our kids kept playing. Here’s Molly winning a ball balancing competition.

Winner

They had a DJ playing music, which meant Molly spent a lot of time dancing on the tennis court. Most of the adults running things thought she was great.

Dancing

Still dancing

Nick Kyrgios showed the kids how an overhead smash is done.

Smash

This is apparently the face you make when you hit a forehand. And you stand on one leg.

Forehand face

Smiling player

Molly still has her tongue out as she reaches for this ball.

Tongue out

The obligatory group picture with Nick before he headed out.

Group picture

Here’s the whole Play Day. They had 4 mini courts set up for the kids.

The whole Play Day

After the kids were done playing, the Kastles had a pizza party for them, as well as some arts and crafts stations to make signs. We also got to see the Kastles warm up. Here’s the entire mostly empty stadium, with Nick Kyrgios and Sam Groth warming up.

Kastles Stadium

Warm up

And their serves in action.

Groth Serve

Kyrgios Serve

In addition to the pizza and crafts, they had a tennis-themed juggler put on an act. I don’t know if he’s always tennis-themed, or just for this event, but he was quite good.

Juggler

Once we got to our seats (front row of the upper deck), the girls got a picture with the tennis ball man. I proceeded to tweet this picture, which was picked as the Kastles’s favorite tweet, winning us a prize bag (more on that later).

Tennis ball man

In our seats, with our signs.

In our seats

The girls got to go on the court to form the tunnel that the players ran out through. They were very excited to high five the players on the court, even the players from the other team.

Then, they got to stay on court for the national anthem.

National anthem

Then we got to actually watch the Kastles play. Here’s Nick Kyrgios and Andreja Klepac playing against Scott Lipsky and Alla Kudryavtseva from the Orange County Breakers.

The match

During breaks, they would show interviews and other quick spots on the big screen. They did one about Family Day, and wanted some kids in the spot. Since we were sitting on the front row of the upper deck, we were in the perfect spot for them to find us.

On camera

Here’s what they looked like on the big screen during the spot.

On the big screen

The match was a lot of fun of course, but I have fewer pictures of it. But here are a couple of serves. First, Nick Kyrgios serving in Men’s Doubles.

Kyrgios serve

And here’s Madison Brengle serving in Women’s Doubles.

Brengle serve

It ended up going into extended play, but the Kastles won! Here’s Nick rushing to his teammates after winning the final point.

Kastles win!

The match was so much fun, and we hope to go back next year. And I can’t forget to tell you about all our loot. We got so much free and cheap stuff at the Kastles match. It included:

  • A free Mylan World Team Tennis shirt for each of the girls from the USTA Play Day
  • A free Washington Kastles shirt for each of the girls for being part of the run-out tunnel
  • A free tennis racquet and tennis ball for each of the girls, which all kids under 12 in attendance received
  • A free long-sleeve Nike Dri-Fit shirt, hat, wristband, and a Pinstripes gift certificate to for my winning tweet I mentioned above
  • A free wristband that was thrown by the players into the stands that we caught
  • A free tennis ball that was hit by the opposing team’s coach into the stands
  • 2 youth hats and 1 very nice adult T-shirt that were $10 each
  • Miscellaneous other small free items they gave out

Quite the haul, especially since the tickets were only $12 each in the first place.

Our loot

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