LOCAL TENNIS with Donna Schoenmaekers
Competition tennis is on hiatus for Tennis Geelong during school holidays with the anticipation of Night and Saturday Pennants starting from October 7.
There are still opportunities for players to get in some preparation with various tournaments around the state, and for juniors, a number of development events around the area.
Geelong Lawn will host their monthly tournament this week, Western Heights Uniting hosted 30 players last week and the Bellarine will be similar at Point Lonsdale in a fortnight.
The most recent addition to this opportunity is Lara with their event held last weekend.
It has been a number of years since Lara hosted such an event, and with 45 players on the day, the plans for running multiple events in 2025 have been solidified. Proximity to Melbourne was an advantage for the northern club with 19 entries from outside Geelong, while local support was also good, with the draws reaching capacity and several players on the reserve list.
Players with ratings between 6.5 and 1 were split into nine groups of five, based on UTR, playing four six-game sets, giving everyone plenty of match play.
Top seed Abishek Mugunthan took out Group A with four wins 6-3, 6-3, 6-1, 6-1, while Jensen Wong also had a clean sweep in Group B, but with a tougher time, fighting to two 7-5 wins.
Oliver Mitrevski and Tim Tianze Xu both suffered a loss in Group C, but with Mitrevski winning their match up took the honours for the section. Likitha Nagavarapu battled against Andre Ficca eventually victorious 7-5 to win through in Group D.
Group E saw all players winning at least one set with Rishith Reddy Vangala eventual champion with four wins. Lexi Miller was one of the most consistent on the day winning all her four sets 6-3 in Group F while Zoe Lotfus won on a count back in Group G to Spencer Miles with only one game separating them for the day.
Lucy Salmon and Kevin Wang took out Groups H and I without dropping a set giving them great confidence going into the upcoming Summer competition.
With players enjoying good weather, standard of play and the new facilities at Lara, the day was a success with many looking forward to what is in store for 2025.
