By ADEM SARICAOGLU
WESTERN Region Tennis Association administrator Daniel Pivato believes the local tennis scene is on the verge of a resurgence.
Pivato admits participation numbers have been down since the glory days of Australian tennis in the 1970s and 80s.
But Pivato believes there are a number of factors other than Australia’s poor recent showing at the top level that account for the steady decline in numbers.
“In the last 30 years, obviously people have started working on weekends (and) kids have started working as well on weekends,” Pivato said.
“I think the work thing has impacted on tennis in general, but there’s also been competition from many other new sports that have popped up, so I do think tennis has had a lot of competition for increasing numbers.
“But I will say in the last couple of years the numbers have stabilised for tennis.”
Pivato has noticed a growing level of interest within the WRTA’s senior ranks in recent years, which has sparked a number of local clubs into action to attract more members.
“Senior tennis has actually seen an increase in interest and an increase in teams, and that’s happened in the last couple of years, so we’ve sort of turned a corner there,” Pivato said.
“We can also see a small increase moving for the juniors at the moment, but it will be interesting this summer to see if the increase does continue.“From my point of view, it’s actually looking quite hopeful that people have maybe started drifting back to tennis.”
With the WRTA winter season due to wrap up in coming weeks, player entries for the upcoming summer season are now due.
The summer competition will start in October, with Laverton Park, Kingsville and Liston all expected to dominate the competition.
