This past Saturday, prior to the club's End of Season Party, we held the final of the Mixed Doubles Club Championships Division A, Erika and Joel Furey vs Kanitha Burns and Mike Gorman. Mike and Kanitha emerged as the champions, and as new members to the club, naturally we had some questions: 

STC: What are your respective hometowns and when did you start living in Stowe?

KB: I grew up in Northern Virginia but have moved a lot for school and work and ended up spending about 15 years in Philadelphia and the surrounding area prior to moving to Stowe the first time in 2018. After 2 years, we moved back to the Philadelphia area for 2 years before coming back to Stowe the second time at the end of 2022. So, this is our 4th year in Stowe. 

MG: Originally from a bedroom community in Alaska outside of Anchorage, I moved to Boston and some of the surrounding towns in 2000. Like so many I started spending a lot of time in Stowe in 2020.

STC: What do you do for work?  

KB: My husband, Patrick Pastella, and I work together in real estate development. We have an architectural design-build firm called PASTELLA BURNS which specializes in luxury residential home design and construction.

MG: I'm a mortgage originator, which allows me some flexibility in my schedule to take advantage of the many available activities in the area.

STC: How did you get your start in tennis? 

KB: I played tennis in high school and then didn’t play for 18 years before starting up again. I love the game and I'm always looking to improve. I believe that at any age, people can still get better at tennis if you work at it.

MG: I grew up in Alaska and played tennis in high school. My dad was a middle school teacher and he put together his own after school tennis program to introduce tennis to middle schoolers who were interested. He later became came the high school tennis coach and I played for the team winning the 1st state championship for our school. I later took 13 years off before getting back into the game.

STC: Coincidentally, you joined the club the same year (this year) and you appear to be friends on and off the court - when did you start playing tennis together?

KB: We met two winters ago at Topnotch when we joined the same USTA Mixed Doubles team. We found that we have a compatible style of play that’s effective for a doubles team so we’ve been playing together since then. We also like to practice and do drills together that most people don’t like to do like mini tennis and volley-volley. Mini tennis is super fun and a great way to improve your game. You play points but all shots have to be inside the service line. It’s fun to switch back and forth between low slices and power topspin shots.

STC: What was your experience playing in the Mixed Doubles Tournament as new members to the club? 

MG: The competition was great and we had a good number of teams sign up. Being new members I felt everyone went out of their way to introduce themselves and overall were just so pleasant. Having the finals at the year end party was so cool too.

STC: Tell us about the finals against Erika and Joel Furey - what was your perspective on the match? 

MG:  Due to the qualifying round robin format, and with the rain delay, we got to play Erika and Joel a total of 3 times, including the final. The first day of the mixed tournament, Kanitha and I were up 2-0 with Joel serving Love - 30 when we got called in for rain, canceling the tournament for the day. Resuming the tournament the next day, we played them again and they were dialed and ready for us, playing exceptional tennis and beating us 5-4 out of the 9 games played in the round robin format. Even through we lost that round, we were confident we would be able to get another chance to play them in the finals. 

Going into the final, we won the coin toss and I elected to serve. There were six deuces before we were able to win the first game which set the tone of the match. If we had lost that first game, Erika and Joel could have gained good momentum and things may have turned out differently. Erika served next and with that break of serve we were able to keep the foot on the gas and win Kanitha's serve, going on to win the first set. Going into the second set I knew Erika and Joel were going to go for it. They were up 2-1 in the second set and I was worried they had momentum. Joel was catching fire and Erika wasn’t letting anything past the net. Thankfully we were able to come back to win the second set and the match largely due to Kanitha’s monstrous service returns. Breaking Joel’s serve was a huge game to win!! After that, they had a break, then a break back and I was able to serve it out for the win. 

STC: What a match - congrats all around and we look forward to seeing both of you back at the Club Championships next year!