By PETER LUC, TDTA junior president
What a month it’s been, so far, for Tweed’s junior tennis players.
Firstly, the Tweed District hosted the third round of the Medibank Junior Development Series on Sunday 7 April.
To cater for the 104 entrants, the highest amount received in years in the north-east NSW region, the event was held at Tweed Heads Tennis Club, Tennis Terranora and Club Banora.
Tweed District continued to shine for north-east NSW, providing 54 of the 104 entrants.
The largest field, the under-14 boys, was held at Club Banora and the competition was so close in each pool, it came down to the last pool matches to decide who would contest the finals.
Tweed District winners on the day were under-14 boys – Louis Clark, under-14 girls – Saduni Wijeweera and under-16 boys – Manu Rowe.
The Brisbane Open Junior Age tournament was also held over the Queensland school holidays with some of the Tweed’s under-16 juniors achieving fantastic results.
In the under-16 boys singles, Cody Atkinson made it to the quarter-finals with Aaron Westerlund making it all the way through to the final.
The under-16 girls singles saw Amber Molloy also through to the final round.
Meanwhile three of the Tweed’s top juniors, Brody Luc (under-12 boys), Hannah McDonald (under-14 girls) and Aaron Westerlund (under-16 boys) all qualified for the National Claycourt Championships.
Entries, in each age group, were limited to the highest ranked 56 junior acceptors from around the country.
The under-12 and under-14 championships were held at Ipswich. Brody and Hannah both gained invaluable experience at their first national championships, playing well among the best of Australia’s junior players.
Playing singles, Brody went down 19-17 in a third set tiebreak to the qualifying first seed; and in doubles, paired up with Dario Kmet, from Sydney, to make the round of 16, along the way beating northern NSW’s top-ranked doubles pair and giving Gold Coast’s top ranked doubles pair a very close match.
The under-16 championships were held at Melbourne Park meaning Aaron, after making the final in Brisbane the day before, had to take a 6am flight from the Gold Coast to Melbourne on the morning of the event. In a match lasting two-and-a-half hours, Aaron went down in three sets. Although it was a match he said he should have won, he’s had a wonderful month so far and continues to rise towards the top of Australian rankings.
