About Christiane:  She was born and educated in West Germany.  After college, she married Phil and they embarked together on a life around the world.  Christiane is a professional translator who lives in Anthem, AZ. She started playing tennis at age 26: the playing helped greatly in making friends wherever she lived. 

It All Started ... The Gourmet Series of tennis tournaments developed from her first exposure to Vail’s Chocolate Cup, then in its infancy.  The idea of friends traveling to play friendly matches against people they would otherwise never meet was appealing and very feasible.

The M-Cup Was First!  The first Margarita Cup followed in Anthem 16 years ago with 10 teams of 4.0s from several places.  Soon 3.5s and 4.5s joined.   The fun grew to four divisions over 2 weekends, including friends from Japan and Canada. After reaching 320 players for the two weekends, it was time to create new Cups in new locations.

Volunteers Make It Happen!  The Gourmet Cups is a volunteer activity (fully) and is in no way a business endeavor. Christiane voluntarily participates in the cups - just like each participant.  She recruits her friends to help too. 😊 There are no sponsors and no payment for her great work.  Christiane's reward is seeing the happy players having fun, new friendships forming, and some tips/donations made by players. 

Love of Tennis and Friends Keeps it Going!  Christiane loves the idea of keeping friendships, making new friends, traveling, and building bridges between people and cultures based on a common passion for tennis and fun competition.  This has been at the core of the Margarita Cup and the newly-formed cups.  

She Hopes You Love it!  Christiane hopes that each participant enjoys the competition, the time spent with friends, and that new friendships develop across all the various cups (i.e., the creation of the Gourmet Cuppers!)