It was a successful tournament for the Barwon Region at the 68th Interregional Country Championships at Benalla last week, coming home with the overall win.
The tournament ran over three days with 206 competitors from six regions playing in eight different age brackets and Open and, as always, was as much about the team camaraderie as the competition.
Friday kicked off in perfect tennis weather with lots of sun and little wind, so the day progressed well with many close matches, starting with singles in the morning and early afternoon before the doubles kicked off late in the day. Saturday was just as good as Friday with singles and the Over 50s doubles starting the day, with doubles and mixed featured in the afternoon. With all preliminary matches completed, Sunday was left for finals, but the weather couldn’t hold out, and with the heavens opening, only half the events were completed.
Of those that did make it to completion, there were three all-Barwon finals with Adam Lasky and Taj Cayzer winner and runner-up in the Men’s Open singles, Jake Bucek and Rhys McNabb in the 18/U Boys and David Kos and Mark Robinson in Mens 50+.
Other winners included Adam Lasky with Matt Hicks in the Men’s Open Doubles, Mikaela and Nicole Mullen in the Women’s Open Doubles, David Kos and Mark Robinson in the Men’s 50+ Doubles, Lotti MacDonald in the 14/U Girls Singles and Matilda Sutherland in 16/U Girls Singles.
Runners-up in the completed singles events were Nicole Mullen in Womens Open, An’E Stojcevski in 12/U Girls, Lachie Rae in 12/U Boys, Sam Carr in 14/U Boys, Rebecca Lee in 25/U Women’s and Ryan Lee in 25/U Men’s.
Barwon was scheduled to play in seven doubles finals and three mixed doubles finals that were abandoned due to the rain, however, with their standing in the events, points accrued helped push Barwon into first place, regaining its place at the head of the Country Regions.
