(FORTUNE Magazine) – On the freshly groomed Har-Tru courts of the Saddlebrook Golf and Tennis ! Resort near Tampa, Florida, 64 players from Seattle to St. Petersburg met on a steamy October weekend to decide the Lipton Iced Tea Amateur Mixed Doubles Championship. Immaculate in tennis whites, the Hartford, Connecticut, team of Cherie Baker, an underwriter at Travelers Insurance Co., and David Hodges, a psychotherapist, stepped onto Court No. 12. They faced New Yorkers Jill Fenton, a ticket manager for a professional tennis tournament and a winner of the 1984 Lipton Amateur, and John McConnell, a producer for NBC Radio. In the third game McConnell and Fenton broke Baker's serve and took the next game as well, making the score 3-1. ''Come on, Cherie, let's go,'' Baker said, psyching herself as tension mounted. ''It can only get better.'' A powerful volley by Baker down the middle of the court put the Connecticut pair on a roll. They won the match 6-4, 6-3. National competitions in which adult amateurs win much more than trophies have bounced onto the tennis scene of the 1980s. Several corporate sponsors now serve up tournaments for amateurs of varying skills, rewarding regional winners with trips to the championship matches. The Lipton pairs, selected through qualifying local matches followed by sectional and regional playoffs, got air tickets to Tampa and luxurious condominium accommodations, plus three days of food and festivities. ''The opportunity to win a trip attracts players,'' says Richard O'Sullivan, 26, a tax accountant with Arthur Andersen & Co. in Chicago and a Lipton competitor. ''Trophies gather dust. Trips give you photos and good memories.'' The big three of the sponsored amateur contests -- the United States Tennis Association/Volvo Tennis League Program, the Equitable Family Tennis Challenge, and the Lipton Amateur -- offer competition to hundreds of thousands of weekend players in hundreds of clubs and tennis centers nationwide. Buick and Ford also have been sponsoring national tournaments. So far, these tournaments have included fewer local matches, many of them played indoors during the fall and winter. Ford hasn't announced whether it will keep up its sponsorship. Doubles, usually mixed, predominate in these sponsored tournaments, but in the USTA/Volvo players compete on separate men's or women's teams of eight, and may choose to play singles or doubles. Competitors in the various contests are usually asked to rate themselves on a standard scale of 1.0 (a beginner) to 7.0 (a McEnroe). In the USTA/Volvo, players from 3.0 (moderately adept at < shot placement and rallying) to 5.0 (consistent and capable of most strokes) compete against other teams at their level. For the Ford matches, players had to be 5.0 or under; amateurs of any rating can enter the Buick. Winners of the Ford National Mixed Doubles Championships last April were Mary Prebil, 26, a claims representative for Aetna Life & Casualty in McLean, Virginia, and David Tober, 32, a Falls Church, Virginia, agent for Connecticut Mutual. Ford paid travel and living expenses for the 72 competitors at the PGA National Resort in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, and allowed each player to bring a guest. Players who advanced to the semifinals were invited to stay an extra two days to watch the Ford Challenge Cup, the women's pro tournament in which Chris Evert Lloyd defeated Hana Mandlikova. Just before the pro matches, Billie Jean King, director of the Ford amateur tournament, introduced Prebil and Tober to the crowd at the stadium court. Prebil and Tober also reached the national USTA/Volvo championships in Delray Beach, Florida. Volvo and USTA contributed $1,000 to each team, but players had to cover the remaining expenses. Says Prebil of corporate-sponsored contests she has entered: ''I've gotten a couple of trips and some lifetime experiences.'' Of all the amateur tournaments, the Equitable family championship brings winners closest to the greatness and glory of tennis. Equitable Life Assurance gives six winning family pairs -- father-son, father-daughter, mother-son, mother-daughter, husband-wife, and brother-sister -- from 16 regional competitions all-expense-paid, four-day trips to New York for playoffs at the site of the U.S. Open pro championships in September. Equitable's amateurs share courts and locker rooms with pro stars playing in the Open. After Robert Sharp, 47, president of the Peninsula Motor Club, an American Automobile Association affiliate in Tampa, and Robin Sharp, 18, had won the father-daughter finals, Robin telephoned a friend from the locker room. Overhearing the good news, Martina Navratilova congratulated Robin, who has earned a four-year tennis scholarship at Auburn University. Says her father, ''Those are the kinds of things that an 18-year-old will never, never forget.'' Keith Bailey, 31, a Peoria, Illinois, salesman for the Standard Register Co., which makes business forms, and his wife, Wendy, 25, left their 16-month-old son, Nathaniel, with friends in the women's locker room when they went out to , play for the husband-wife championship. They were down love-3 in their third set when a couple of great retrieves by Wendy helped them win 4-6, 6-4, 6-3. When Wendy fetched Nat, she found Hana Mandlikova tossing balls for him to swing at with his miniature racket. The Baileys and Nat then saw Mandlikova beat Navratilova and take the silver trophy. Moments later they and other Equitable finalists stepped onto the stadium court and got their own double- handled cups -- pewter, not silver. THE LIPTON mixed doubles tournament is the last nationally sponsored amateur championship of the season. This year's finalists at Saddlebrook ranged from 16-year-old high school girls to 46-year-old matrons. They included college varsity players, past and present, as well as a 38-year-old stockbroker, William A. Beckwith, from Kidder Peabody's Scottsdale, Arizona, office, who didn't take up the game till he was 30. With an exceptionally strong partner, JoAnne Murto, 22, a student at Grand Canyon College in Phoenix, Beckwith made it to the semifinals. In the other Lipton semifinals match, the Connecticut team of Cherie Baker and David Hodges met Timothy L. Garcia, 29, a tax lawyer from Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Mari Forbes, 21, a student at the University of New Mexico. In a hard match, fought under a broiling sun, the Connecticut pair won 6-3, 3-6, 7-5. On Sunday morning in the finals, two 18-year-olds from Charleston, South Carolina -- Angelo Anastopoulo and Sharon Kidney -- took the first set 7-5. In the second set Hodges and Baker were ahead 5-3, with Hodges serving. At this critical point, the South Carolinians broke his serve and then, says Hodges, ''they played some very strong games. We really didn't figure them out.'' Anastopoulo and Kidney again won 7-5 and took the championship. ''Win or lose,'' says Cherie, ''that was a great tournament.'' For how to enter, call: USTA/Volvo League, 212-302-3322; Equitable Family Tennis Challenge, 212-319-7770; Lipton Iced Tea Amateur Mixed Doubles, 800-344-4469; Buick, 800-2 CAN WIN. Now that's a great phone number.