This week marked the start of the Tennis Geelong Winter Junior and Senior Pennants and some of the future stars of the game hit the court for the first time in the Orange Ball section.
Orange Ball is played on a smaller court with lower compression balls allowing players to start at an earlier age and help practise what they are learning in their lessons.
This season there are eight teams from across the association participating with players aged between eight and 12, with almost all players new to competition format.
To help the players hone their skills and keep things moving while they are learning, the matches are played to four games with sudden death deuce, drop and hit second serves, and parents helping with scoring and collecting balls.
Matches were held at various venues with Surfcoast hosting Point Lonsdale White, Point Lonsdale Stingrays hosting Barwon Heads, All Saints hosting Geelong Lawn Parrots and Geelong Lawn Plovers hosting Clifton Springs. The weather was perfect for the first week and all the players enjoyed the day out. The objective of the section is to learn, so there is no ladder, but the teams were evenly matched with all being successful in at least one set on the day, and two of the matches tied at three sets all.
Many of the previous Orange Ball participants are now playing Green Ball and Yellow Ball competitions, so we look forward to seeing all of our young stars progress over the next few seasons.
