Congratulations all around!

We did it! The PBP Racketeers Tuesday evening capped their outstanding 2010 Great Valley Corporate Center summer tennis league season with a hard-fought, blood-stained and sweat-soaked, but straight-set 3-0 victory over an old rival, the Vanguard Line Managers, to earn the right to move up to the A Division next year.

The Racketeers took the women’s doubles rather easily, 6-3, 6-0, but had a tougher time in the men’s doubles, 6-3, 7-6 (7-5 in the tiebreaker), and scored a similarly close 6-4, 7-5 win in the mixed doubles.

The Line Managers had finished next-to-last in the A Division during the regular season, while the Racketeers placed second in the B, setting up Tuesday’s face-off at the Great Valley High School courts for a spot in the A Division next year.

We achieved our goal of earning the promotion in our third year in the league. In our first year, we had finished near the bottom of the standings of the B Division. Our second year saw us place fourth, although we then proceeded to lose both playoff games when our star player was ruled ineligible for the playoffs because he had joined the company midway through the season and had not been on the starting roster.

For PBP’s tennis enthusiasts, the fun never stops. Cephalon has invited us to play in its own “open” tournament starting Monday, Aug. 16. In September our winter indoor season starts up at the Great Valley Racquet Club and next year, depending on availability of players, we will explore the possibility of fielding two teams in the summer league, the newly promoted A team and a B team to give more PBPers a chance to experience this fun inter-company competition.