LOCAL TENNIS with Donna Schoenmaekers
Tennis Victoria’s Associations Junior Pennant wound up last week and Tennis Geelong’s 10 teams performed well.
The three girls teams all had good wins through the 10-week season, along with the Under 10 and 12B boys.
The Open A Boys and 14B Boys finished third in their sections while Open B finished fourth, but in the closest section of the competition were only one win out of first position.
Section 14B Boys had a four rubber to two win over North Eastern (NEJTA) in the final round of home and away, to push them into second and into the section final.
The team faced Eastern Region (ERT) in the final, and would have liked their chances having had three close wins during the home and away rounds.
The match started evenly with Xavier Willoughby going down 6-1, 7-5, while Aki Bhat got up with the same score.
Unfortunately Ishaan Bava and Oliver Mitrevski lost the third and fourth singles, and while Bhat and Mitrevski won the second doubles 8-4, ERT won the first and the final four rubbers to two.
The boys in 12D finished top of their section with eight wins and two washouts and faced Northern Suburbs (NSJTA) in the final.
The teams had two close matches during the home and away, with Tennis Geelong coming out in front by only games in the first, and four rubbers to two in the second.
The final proved to be a seesawing match and thrilling to the end. Evren Atasever played well but went down in the first singles while Arinadithya Jothiikumar had a marathon in the second, eventually winning 6-3, 4-6, 13-11.
Remy Cairncross had a slow start but fought back, eventually going down 6-0, 7-5 while Streicher Jansen van Vuren won the fourth singles 6-3, 6-0, leaving the teams level on rubbers with NSJTA ahead by two sets going into the doubles. Both doubles were epic battles, and the match could have gone either way.
Atasever and Jothikumar fought tooth and nail in the first, but lost in a tie-break, while Cairncross paired with Mateo Carrington in the second doubles, which too went to the wire with our boys winning 9-7. With the teams tied on rubbers, the end result went to NSJTA with a two set eight game advantage.
