Tweed Tennis By Peter Luc
POTTSVILLE’S Team Sonic are the only undefeated team left in the Friday Night Junior Tennis Pennants competition with a victory over Kirra’s Wilson Wackers.
Both teams had been undefeated going into the game with the Pottsville side proving too strong.
In our Saturday junior fixtures, each division is very close early on with teams from Tweed, Murwillumbah, Pottsville and Kirra towards the top. With some wonderful matches being played, the talent this year for each division is very good and it’s also great to see everyone having fun and showing great sportsmanship.
On the tournament front, it was another month of outstanding success for Tweed District’s junior tennis stars.
Earlier in the month, some of our older juniors competed in the Ipswich AMT (Australian Money Tournament) and under-18 titles. Cody Atkinson had a big weekend making to the under-18 singles final before winning three matches to qualify for the singles main draw of the AMT. Aaron Westerlund also won his three qualifying matches to make it to the singles main draw, while Blake Kebblewhite and Reid Feehan played well making to the under-18 singles semis and quarter-finals, respectively.
Mid month, a group of our juniors headed to Sawtell for the NSW Junior Clay Court Championships. With rain delays providing plenty of time for fun between matches, when the weather fined up and it came down to playing our juniors came away with great results.
Amber Molloy was a semi-finalist in the under-16 girls singles and runner-up in the under-16 girls doubles but in stepping up to the open ladies singles event as an unseeded player beat the fifth and third seeds along the way to make it to the final then beat the highly ranked number one seed in the final 6-0 6-0. A wonderful victory for Amber.
Manu Rowe also had a great tournament finishing sixth in the hotly contested under-16 boys singles before teaming up with Gunnedah’s Zac McCann as number one seeds and winning the under-16 boys doubles.
Louis Clark and Teva Leibo paired up to knock out the fourth and second seeds and make it to the final of the under-14 boys doubles, before giving the number one seeds a close match going down 4-6 3-6.
Other commendable results were: under-14 boys singles main draw quarter-final – Louis Clark, under-14 boys singles consol semi-final – Brodie Clifford-Mullen and Teva Leibo, under-14 girls singles consol winner and under-14 girls doubles semi-final – Hannah McDonald, under-16 boys singles quarter-final and seventh place – Trafford McCrory.
Sonic Pottsville coach Ryan Kebblewhite, who coaches a number of the junior players that attended Sawtell, said he was very proud of the players’ achievements given it was a state championships tournament.
At the Southern Downs Junior Championships, held 18-19 May at Warwick, Trafford McCrory continued his good form from Sawtell, taking home the under-16 boys singles title. After not losing a set during the pool matches, Trafford had fight back from a set down to win the final 0-6 6-4 7-5. He also took home the under-16 boys doubles runner-up trophy going down in a tie-break. In the under-14 boys singles Teva Leibo and Patrick Myles both finished second in their pool before pairing up to make it to the under-14 boys doubles semis.
On the same weekend, some of our juniors, including a big group from Murwillumbah led by coach Brandon Rowe, headed to Lismore for the fifth round of the Medibank Junior Development Series.
In the under-12 boys, Tweed juniors made up five of the eight finalists with Jai Rowe (M’Bah) having a tussle with other seeded pool players early on before charging through the play-offs to win the event from runner-up Flyn Schieb (Pottsville). Jamie Krause (Tweed) finished third while Abhay Reissenberger, Harrison Smith and Ethan Horner (all from M’Bah) made it to the quarter-finals.
Another huge highlight was James Rea (Tweed) and Amber Molloy (Pottsville) who went through their pool matches undefeated before continuing their match winning form taking home the under-16 boys and girls winner’s trophies, respectively.
Other great results were: under-10 boys semi-final – Mac Mehrtens (M’Bah), under-14 boys semi-final – Louis Clark (Pottsville), quarter-final – Ethan Bruggy (M’Bah) and play-offs – Gillon Preston (M’bah), under-16 boys quarter-final – Will Bagnall (M’Bah), under-16 girls third place – Saduni Wijeweera (Tweed) who stepped up from the under-14s to perform admirably.
