Tennis Talk With Michael Poulos What a great weekend for Southern Highlands tennis! Last Sunday we were represented by three doubles duos in the high standard Premier League playoffs. Eight areas came together in Ulladulla, offering up their best players to compete for a spot in the NSW country team to face city in January. The Bowral club had Damian Bromfield and myself in the men’s and Susie Purvis and Amanda Carney in the women. Representing Moss Vale were Tristan Whitehill and Ben Hamilton. In an amazing effort Susie and Amanda won the day and now advance to the final playoffs before the country team is chosen. The pressure was on right till the last point, the final match being the match that had the days placing’s on edge till the end. In a spirited match Susie and Amanda held tough after trailing 5-4 to record a hard fought 9-6 victory. A mighty effort from two great players. In the men’s division Damian and myself finished an agonizing second by two games. After defeating the eventual winners in the first match of the day it was a dog-fight amongst the top three teams before the worth winners from Nowra pipped us on a the games count back. Tristan and Ben from Moss Vale came out of the blocks flying with 6-1 and 6-0 victories. Unfortunately the form faded a little and they finished in sixth place. Ulladulla hosted a great event and won the highlands players enjoyed immensely. We now turn our attention to Homebush later in the year to hopefully cheer Susie and Amanda on to a spot in the country team. Preceding this, on Saturday, was a fantastic red-ball challenge for the young Bowral kids. 24 local kids, most playing there first tournament of their lives braved the overcast conditions to compete in our third red-ball challenge tournament, these events have opened up real match play to a whole new level of player who want to not only enjoy tennis but compete as well. The red-ball challenge enables kids to have fun and be competitive at the same time. The free slushies and chocolate crackles go down a treat also! After two hours of awesome tennis we had our winners. Thomas Shanahan took out division 1, a worthy champion after finishing runner-up last tournament. Jake Gill finished a terrific runner-up. Division two saw the ever-improving Connor Gill sweep all before him to take the trophy, the runner-up being the fast finishing Mia Shakeshaft. Julia Poulos won a beautiful girls division three. Molly Kable was a worthy runner-up. This group including Julia, Molly, Lily Kable, Darcy Corley and Steffi Malady exemplified the red-ball spirit with these 6-8 year olds able to play a real match and compete in a fun environment.
Posted on: Mon, 23 Sep 2013 03:05:51 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015