By Darlene Jackson

Wendy and Gil Fong were named Tennis Lady and Man of the Year at the recent annual meeting of the Newtown Tennis Association. They have been playing tennis in Newtown since they arrived here in 1978. This year they were runners up in the mixed doubles portion of the Berlingo Summer Challenge and Wendy and her partner, Stella Gabor, were winners in the Advanced Women’s Doubles division.

Gil taught Wendy to play and is, according to Wendy, great at analyzing her game and coaching her. She was the 1999 Stroock Women’s Singles champ. This year Gil was runner up in the Berlingo Men’s 55 Singles. He also wrote the NTA column during those earlier years. Wendy is presently webmaster for the NTA.

The Fongs were impressed when they came to Newtown in the Fall of 1978 and stopped at Dickinson Park where the then-traditional annual Newtown/Brookfield match was in progress.

The Fongs met in New Haven at Southern New England Telephone Co., where they both work. The company was bought by SBC Communications that operates out of San Antonio, but they remain in the New Haven office. They married in 1979 and played mixed doubles in the Telso (company sponsored) tennis tournaments until 1998, when Gil retired and the tournament was halted. Gil returned to the company in 2000.

They do not play regular winter tennis, but have attended a couple of tennis camp, which is probably good this year as Wendy has Achilles tendonitis that needs a rest.

They both sing in the Connecticut Master Chorale that will have its concert Nov. 18 at St. Mary’s Church in Bethel. She is a first alto and he is a baritone in 1979 Wendy sang I the “Mame” production of St. Rose.

When I interviewed Wendy two years ago, she told me about her cats, but sadly, two have died, so now she is raising a year-old kitten and one older male. Hobbies are reading true crime stories by Ann Rule and other novels and biking. She also does crocheting and she and Gil have also been square dancers.

Wendy grew up on Long Island and graduated with a major in elementary education from Northeastern in Boston, however she is now a computer programmer

Winner of the $50 gift certificate to the Villa Restaurant was awarded to Beth Young, whose name was drawn from a pool of the most active players in the Berlingo summer Challenge. As Wendy wrote on the web page: “Beth played 115 singles games and 161 doubles games, a total of 276 games!! No wonder her tennis arm broke down in her last scheduled match; she is now recuperating from multiple torn tendons.”

Other Berlingo winners announced by the NTA are in women’s singles advanced division, Diane Collins with Sonja Haskel as runner-up and most active; women’s intermediate singles, JoAnn Lopez, Beth Young, and Renee Walter.

Women’s advanced doubles runners up were Elizabeth Lynch and Dawn Nacewicz, who also played the most matches. Women’s intermediate doubles winners were Jayne Pearlman and Carol Ando with Barbara Gorham and April Arnold as runners up. The runners up and Katie Moser and Jean Lask played the most matches.

Men’s singles winner was Ron Tietjen with Dom Nocturne as runner-up and Tim Hanley as the most active. Men’s Intermediate singles winner and most active was Vassos Kyprianou with Gerry Campbell runner-up. Gene Bernard was the men’s 55 singles winner and most active.

Stella and Bob Gabor won the mixed doubles with the Fongs being runners-up and most active.

You can read all about this and more by consulting the NTA web page at www.ntaweb.com.