Iowa and Minnesota’s top prep players featured at Alex J. Kuhn Memorial Tennis Invitational

By John Burbridge

sports@charlescitypress.com

CHARLES CITY — Playing on the world-renowned grass court at the All Iowa Lawn Tennis Club that distinguishes Denise and Mark Kuhn’s homestead located just south of Charles City may be like facing pitcher Greg Maddux.

The surface and Baseball Hall of Famer don’t always bewitch the ball in a manner to make players completely whiff on their swings, but often just enough to muddle their balance and timing to where putting/keeping a ball in play comes off as an ungraceful act of self-defense.

Good thing Claire Gu has been here before.

“I played here once before in 2017,” Gu said of the inaugural Alex J. Kuhn Memorial Tennis Invitational, a Davis Cup-like team competition featuring topnotch youth/prep players representing Iowa and Minnesota.

“Sometimes the ball skids off the surface and catches you by surprise, and the ball doesn’t bounce as high forcing you to get lower to return (groundstrokes),” said Gu, who was the 2022 Iowa high school girls singles champion her junior season with West Des Moines Valley High School.

Gu recently graduated from Valley and plans to attend Harvard University this fall. But she won’t be stringing up her racquet for the Crimson … rather her violin as the four-time all-state musician will further pursue that scholastic extracurricular activity.

But Gu is not giving up tennis as a lifetime recreational sport. During the most recent invite held all day this past Tuesday, Gu helped give Team Iowa a 5-2 advantage through seven of the scheduled 13 matches with a singles victory over a Minnesota state champion.

Also contributing to the Iowa cause were several budding stars from Valley, incoming junior Maddie Hockmuth and incoming sophomore Sophie Tannenbaum, who got themselves in a “barn burner” — just to note, there is a barn adjacent to the court at the AILTC — with Rogers (Minn.) High School incoming senior Ava Stritesky and incoming junior Rebecca Rousslang.

Hockmuth-Tannenbaum took a 3-1 lead in a single-set match to six. But then Rousslang-Stritesky shored up their service game to surge ahead 5-4.

The Iowa duo won the next two games, but when Minnesota tied it at 6-6, it forced a tiebreaker which Hockmuth-Tannenbaum won (7-3).

More than several of the matches played on Tuesday were about that close, including a male singles match featuring incoming Rogers senior Eli Olson and Mason City incoming senior Justin Yarahmadi.

Both players are due to be their respective teams’ No. 1 singles players this forthcoming school year, and Yarahmadi is coming off a deep foray into the prep postseason and he and Riverhawk teammate Reed Kruger advanced as far as the boys doubles semifinals at most recent State Tennis Championships.

While forcing Olson to his backhand, Yarahmadi took a 3-1 lead before Olson — with his deft drop shots and slices — tied the set/match at 4-4 and then at 5-5 after Yaramadi regained the lead.

Yarahmadi eventually won 7-5.

The invitational is in memory of Alex, Denise and Mark’s son, who committed suicide in 2016 at the age of 34. The former Mason City councilman was — like his parents — a tennis enthusiast and helped with the construction of the grass court in 2003. Alex also was heavily involved with the youth of his community while serving as a coach and mentor.

Alex’s surviving son, Rylan Kuhn, who will be a returning letter-winner senior next prep tennis season at Mason City, was part of the Team Iowa.

“This is probably one of the most talented groups of players we put together for this,” Mark Kuhn said.

Sadly, this memorial invite was without one of the AILTC’s dignified mascots and ball fetchers. Milosh, one of the Kuhns’ Clumber Spaniels, recently passed away. He is survived by his longtime “doubles partner” Murray, named after two-time Wimbledon champion Andy Murray.