By PETER LUC
FOLLOWING on from the club’s recent trip to the Champion of Champions event at Inverell, eight of the Tweed’s 10 representatives are now off to the state final later this year.
Will Bagnall (U16 Boys), who keeps getting better throughout the year and rising to all occasions, finished fourth overall.
Tailey Beaver (U16 Girls) also finishing fourth overall. The club’s only female junior representative at the State Final.
In the Under-12 Boys, Tweed juniors played brilliant tennis.
Jai Rowe, who won the previous NE Champions event, finished third in his pool on a count-back and fifth overall. Brandon Stockwell, bounced back from his NE result to make the final and was up against one of our other juniors Flyn Schieb, who was up 3-0 in NE Final before going down 4-6 to Jai, and was out to make amends. In what was an epic final, Flyn came out on top 6-4 to take the NE/NW Under-12 Boys champions title.
In the Under-14 Boys the short ‘first to four’ format, made for some very exciting, high quality tennis.
On Saturday afternoon, Louis Clark was at his brilliant best in his round robin pool, with no junior getting near him. In the other pool Tweed’s other three juniors, Brodie Clifford-Mullen, Teva Leibo and Brody Luc were battling it out with the NW and lower NE juniors. Brody Luc, who made it to last year’s Under-12 state final, stepped up into the Under-14 Boys. ‘Young’ Brody versus ‘Old’ Brodie turned out to be a bottler of a match with ‘young’ Brody having four match points before ‘old’ Brodie came back to win in a tiebreak 7-5.
The most unusual match had to be the last match on Saturday evening with Teva Leibo and Brody Luc battling it out when halfway through the match heavy fog set in.
Teva finished fifth overall and is off to the state final and Brody Luc finished ninth overall and is first reserve for the state final. Louis, who won five series rounds throughout the year, played Brodie Clifford-Mullen in the semi-final winning 6-3 and booking a place in the final where there was a wonderful opportunity for the winner. Louis played dominating tennis and took out the NE/NW Under-14 Boys Champion title in scintillating fashion.
This year, as part of the Under-14 titles, Louis earned himself the opportunity to take up a six week tennis scholarship at the John Newcombe Tennis Ranch in Texas USA. An amazing opportunity and well deserved.
With eight of the Tweed Club’s 10 juniors off to the state final, one first reserve – who will be a force in the age group next year – and Mac Merthens (Under-10 Boys) – an up and coming youngster that has a bright future – it was a tremendous achievement from all juniors… they’ve done the Tweed District proud.
