Queens of the court: State champion seniors tout tennis’ benefits and say it’s never too late to begin
By Bruce McLellan | Living 50 Plus
Five Decatur women, most of them grandmothers and one just months from becoming a great-grandmother, helped a 10-player senior tennis team win a state championship this spring.
To understand how they did it, just talk with them. They have a rapport that helps them mesh with doubles partners on the tennis court just as easily as they finish teammates’ thoughts off of it.
Consider their discussion of how their team formed two years ago.
“We just picked people we thought would go and do good,” said Susan Canada, 68.
Linda Burgreen-Thomas, 79, continued: “Another thing that got us together is we like to have fun together.”
Canada responded: “It’s kind of a beach trip added in. We stay seven days.”
That was for the state tournament in Gulf Shores, which brought Marsha Purcell, 72, into the conversation with a final point about the team roster.
“Nobody that looks good in a bathing suit,” Purcell joked.
Getting started
The team’s formation for the U.S. Tennis Association competition was actually more intentional and planned than their banter suggests.
Purcell, who anticipates the arrival of a great-grandchild in January, has served as captain for several tennis teams in state and Huntsville league play. She and Canada decided to form a women’s 6.5 doubles combo team to compete for the state championship in the USTA 65-and-older division.
“There’s a team in the Shoals that was winning it every season and we just decided to try to put together a team to go up against them,” Purcell said. “That’s really the motivation – to let somebody else win.”
The 6.5 combo designation reflects the total rating of each doubles tandem, with one player rated 3.0, and the other 3.5, although two 3.0 players can compete together. Tennis players can be rated from 1.5, which is a beginner, to 7.0, a touring professional’s level.
Canada said recruiting players wasn’t a simple process.
“As far as people being over 65 that can go play competitively, that’s a whole other game,” Canada said. “We tried to find competitive people and we try to do a good matchup. Like Lynda Wallace and I, we play together a lot, and so we played (doubles) together in the tournament.”
Wallace, 67, and Debra Crowell, 68, were the team’s other two players from Decatur this year. The team also had three players from Huntsville and two from Mobile. Team members’ ages ranged from two who are 67 to Burgreen-Thomas, who turns 80 in September.
Winning state
The Decatur-based team was one of five statewide invited to the state 6.5 combo tournament in Gulf Shores for women 65-plus. The other teams were based in the Shoals, Huntsville, Birmingham and Montgomery. The tournament was played over a weekend, April 13-15, and Decatur won its first three team matchups in the round robin format. That set up a compelling winner-take-all matchup on the tournament’s final day between Decatur and a Huntsville-based team.
“We were playing our peers because Huntsville has a lot of Decatur people on it,” Canada said of the Huntsville roster.
Wallace said, “It was more important beating them than any other city because they were our friends.”
Purcell added, “It was like Austin and Decatur.”
Each team matchup in the state tournament included three doubles matches. The team winning at least two of the doubles matches received the victory. A doubles team needed to win two sets to win its match. If doubles tandems split the first two sets, the third set was played as a 10-point tiebreaker. Team rosters have up to 12 players so not everyone plays in each matchup, and Purcell, for instance, wasn’t able to attend the state tournament even though she helped start the team.
In the showdown against Huntsville, Decatur got its first doubles victory when Canada and Wallace prevailed. But a tough loss by Burgreen-Thomas and partner Julie Ashcraft, 67, of Huntsville, meant it all came down to the third doubles match that was still in progress when the first two finished.
“We went over there to watch and cheer them on,” Canada said. “I was counting on one of the players on the other team to ‘hit the net, hit the net.’ See, a lot of this is the errors that the other team makes.”
Playing for the Decatur team in the final match were Barbara Doty, 75, and Lynne Reynolds, 68, both from Huntsville. Their match went to the tiebreaker.
“It was nerve-wracking,” Burgreen-Thomas said. “We were pacing.”
Doty and Reynolds prevailed, and Decatur won a state championship, earned bragging rights over the Huntsville team and dethroned the 2024 champion Shoals team.
“We got a little trophy and just the claim to fame,” Canada said. “So when we go back next year, everybody will want to beat us.”
Benefits of tennis
For the Decatur women, the championship was a nice bonus for all the practice they put in and the instruction they received in clinics and private lessons. Usually, the Decatur women are on a tennis court three to four days a week.
The biggest attractions of the game for them are the health and fitness benefits and the social aspect.
“We do enjoy being together,” Burgreen-Thomas said. “We do have fun but are very competitive.”
Canada said, “I’m not from here and so coming to play tennis, I’ve met people that I would have never met and formed relationships.
“I just love the people I go out and play with. The social part. We love the exercise (and) being outdoors because we sure don’t like the bubble.”
She said older players prefer using clay courts, and there are four of those outdoors at Decatur’s Jimmy Johns Tennis Center. The bubble she referred to is an aging structure that allows indoor play on hard courts in Decatur during hot, rainy or cold weather. The city recently opened a new indoor ClearSpan tennis facility at Jimmy Johns that has four hard courts.
Purcell said tennis helps with bone strength because of the effort required.
“It also gives you a lot of core strength,” she said. “It’s more fun than going to the gym.”
Burgreen-Thomas, the soon-to-be octogenarian, said the sport’s health benefits are multifaceted.
“I have read that tennis is the sport for longevity. If you ask them, they would probably tell you I’m a health nut. I’m really not. Most of us are health conscious.
“We do some exercise outside of tennis, which helps us play better tennis.”
In addition to touting stronger bones and new relationships as tennis’ benefits for senior players, the USTA said the sport reduces stress while helping with cardiovascular fitness and weight loss. The organization says one study showed “tennis players add 9.7 years to their life over sedentary individuals.”
Never too old
The women on the Decatur team are proof that you don’t have to start playing tennis before you’re 20 to be successful as a senior.
“I’ve been playing for 50 years,” Burgreen-Thomas said. “But I look at a lot of other people and if they started as a young adult or in school, they have been playing a lot longer than I have. Anyway, I was 30 when I started. I would encourage anybody to start at any age.”
Canada said she played growing up but “then I had to work.” She got back into the sport about seven years ago after attending a free clinic conducted by Dan Lucas, the city director of tennis who is based at the Jimmy Johns facility at Point Mallard.
Wallace attended the same clinic, and said it was her introduction to the sport.
“I just was ready to try something different,” Wallace said. “I had always gone to the gym or ridden my bike. And I just happened to read it in the paper and thought, ‘I need to try that’ and liked that, and said that I’m not ready to play games so I got Dan to give me individual lessons for a while before I joined the league.”
Purcell was about 40 when she started playing in the Atlanta Lawn Tennis Association. Now she stays busy with team play. In addition to serving as a captain for the Decatur 65-plus combo 6.5 team, she captains a 55-plus 6.5 combo team based in Huntsville and a 55-plus 3.5 team that plays spring and fall leagues in Huntsville.
“I’ve moved around several times,” Purcell said, “and that’s the first thing I look for is tennis: Where am I going to play?”
Lucas said being over 50 shouldn’t rule out learning to play tennis.
“Heavens no,” he said. “Great time to start. It’s not an easy game. It takes practice. It takes somebody showing you the right technique. If you don’t have your technique right, very difficult game to play. Fun game but tough game. Involves a lot of foot movement and running and agility. It’s not a standaround game.”
As with Purcell, most of the women on the state champion team also compete in other events and with other teams. Burgreen-Thomas will play in an intersectional tournament in Arizona in September in the 80-plus division after she becomes eligible.
All of them also serve as inspirations for young and old.
“I’m just happy that my 10-year-old granddaughter has been taking the summer clinic here,” Wallace said. “It used to be a joke, ‘Well Mimi can’t babysit today. She’s got tennis.’ I’ll keep you after 11, you know. They used to tease me about it.
“Well now she’s taking it and she likes it.”
State champion 65-and-over 6.5 doubles combo team based in Decatur
| Player | age | hometown |
| Linda Burgreen-Thomas | 79 | Decatur |
| Susan Canada | 68 | Decatur |
| Debra Crowell | 68 | Decatur |
| Marsha Purcell | 72 | Decatur |
| Lynda Wallace | 67 | Decatur |
| Julie Ashcraft | 67 | Huntsville |
| Barbara Doty | 75 | Huntsville |
| Lynne Reynolds | 68 | Huntsville |
| Barbara Blomeyer | 69 | Mobile |
| Reenie Kinney | 69 | Mobile |