Large family provides big motivation

Every time she steps on the court, Greeley's Sara Krammer knows she has got a lot of support.

With eight brothers and sisters that play tennis, she usually always has a rooting section.

With part of her family on vacation, Sara may not have had the crowd she usually does at a match, but it didn't seem to matter. The 13-year-old breezed through her match against Eaton's Kailey Kaiser 6-0, 6-0 in the Girls 14 Singles division at the Colorado Community Bank Junior Open Tuesday.

Sara's game was just too much for Kailey to handle even though the Eaton Middle School student has family roots of her own in the sport of tennis.

Kailey, 13, is the niece of Eaton High School head boys and assistant girls tennis coach Roxann Edelmon (formerly Roxann Kaiser). Edelmon was also a standout player at Eaton and the University of Northern Colorado.

"Sometimes I would go over to her tennis matches and hang out with her and watch the high school girls," Kailey said. "Sometimes I would practice with them."

Sara doesn't even need to practice with a tennis team. She's got her entire family to help her do that.

"It is a lot of competition with us," Sara said. "We all play each other and it is fun."

Sometimes, they even get to play with each other in doubles. That is the case for Sara this year in the Colorado Community Bank tournament. She will be playing mixed doubles with her brother Matt. The only catch is that since there is only one mixed doubles division, she has to play up in the 18-year-old division.

That's just fine with Sara. She has never gotten to play mixed double with Matt in a tournament, a senior this fall at the University of Northern Colorado.

Sara said it is pretty scary playing doubles with the older kids because there is more competition there, but that is what she likes about it.

Matt is also looking forward to playing with his little sister.

"It is really easy to play with my sister because we get along real well," Matt said.

In fact, Sara usually gets along better playing tennis with family members than with others.

"Because you don't know them as well and you can't get mad at them when they miss," Sara said.

TOURNAMENT THRIVING: The Colorado Community Bank Junior Open had a record turnout this year with 138 players participating in 307 events. Co-director John Haefeli said that 10 years ago there were only about 75 to 80 players in the annual tournament.

One of the reasons for the turnout is that the tournament is a designated tournament and players who want to score points in the Colorado Tennis Association and Intermountain Tennis Association rankings must play in four junior tournaments and one designated tournament to count in the rankings.

Despite the fact that there is another designated tournament in Pueblo this week, Haefeli was pleased to see that there were 15 to 16 players that made the trip up from Colorado Springs to play in Greeley tournament.

"It surprises me that instead of driving 40 minutes, they are spending the week up here with us instead," Haefeli said.

SPEAKING OF TRAVELING FAR: Caitlin Bolnick of Bozeman, Mont., came the farthest distance to play in the tournament. Bolnick, 16, was driving through on vacation to meet a friend in Phoenix and wanted to participate in one of the few designated Intermountain tournaments along the way, so she decided to stop and play in Greeley.

Bolnick is used to traveling. While her home is in Bozeman, she goes to high school and plays tennis in Lawrenceville, N.J., at the Lawrenceville School, a prestigious boarding school about five minutes away from Princeton University.