Lots of love: Charity tennis match features lawmakers teaming up across the aisle

Lawmakers are working on their bipartisan backhands, prepping for a charity tennis event that’ll team them up with partners from across the aisle.

“I played twice with my kid over the Fourth, in between marching parades,” Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.) said of his training regimen ahead of the Washington Kastles Charity Classic.

{mosads}“I’m very sore — I’m getting older but I’m getting ready anyway,” Brat said. The 53-year-old congressman is one of several members who will take on prominent journalists and sports pros at the Tuesday tennis showdown at Kastles Stadium in D.C.

Among those who will be serving up their best: Reps. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), Tom Rooney (R-Fla.) and Kevin Yoder (R-Kan.); Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.); journalists including CNN’s Michelle Kosinski and The Hill’s Editor-in-Chief Bob Cusack; D.C. United head coach Ben Olsen; and former Sen. John Breaux (D-La.) and former Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.).

But some lawmakers hitting the court are trying to keep expectations low.

“I wish I had the kind of time to do the kind of prep that’s necessary, but I’m getting ready,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) said.

Before she was elected to Congress, Rep. Cheri Bustos said, she played in a women’s doubles league for years. But the Illinois Democrat said she has barely gotten a chance to pick up a racket to practice since stepping foot in the House in 2013.

“The last time I played tennis was at this tournament last year, so that’s what’s bad. So I’m not expecting to be too good,” Bustos said. “I go to the gym every morning, so it’s not like … I can’t keep up or anything. I mean, I ride bikes, I do the elliptical, I lift weights.”

“But I’m not going to be good — I know that,” she added.

“What I think makes this so special, as opposed to a lot of the other congressional charity sports events around town, is at this one, we don’t play Republicans against Democrats or White House against the Hill,” Mark Ein, the Washington Kastles’s owner, told ITK.

Ein, who’s also playing at the showdown, explained that teams are mixed so that each has players from each party, as well as members of the press.

Ein said 100 percent of the proceeds from ticket sales at the sixth annual competition will be donated to a variety of local charities, including the United States Tennis Association Foundation, which provides tennis education to kids in under-resourced communities. 

The Hill is a media sponsor of the event. 

So what will tennis fans see when Congress starts swinging?

“We can expect some great tennis,” said Ein, “some not-so-great tennis, a bit of trash-talking, a lot of laughs and always a really competitive match.”