Saturday Junior and Senior Pennants recommenced in Tennis Geelong competition with four rounds to go for most sections.
Section 1 Boys has been a close competition all season and this week it showed with six of the eight teams moving ladder positions.
It was a battle of seventh vs eighth when Barwon Heads travelled to Surfcoast Jan Juc with both teams still an outside chance of making the four. The match was closer than the scoreline indicated with four of the sets decided 7-5 or in a tie-break.
Sienna Clatworthy and Tom Kemp performed well, winning their singles 6-1 while Aarya Nori got through in a tie-break and Nina Grigsby 7-5.
Barwon Heads got on the board when Ted Reid and Ollie Schirmer won their doubles 7-5, but Grigsby and Kemp rounded out a 5-1 win to push Surfcoast into seventh, but closed the gap to 13.5 points away from fourth.
Western Heights Uniting maintained sixth position with a 5-1 win over Geelong Lawn, who dropped from second to third. Louis Smith, Archer Youla, Max Drake and Jensen Fenske were too strong for Lawn with Elijah Jewell winning the fourth singles Lawn’s highlight for the day.
Wandana Heights were unable to field a team this week against Lara, which had a significant impact on the ladder. Lara moved to second, just one point behind Ocean Grove, and Wandana have dropped out of the four, one point behind Grovedale and only 1.5 points in front of Western Heights.
Ladder leaders Ocean Grove travelled to Grovedale, although with detours due to the Cadel Evans Bike Race, this was more of an effort than usual. Grovedale got off to a good start with the combinations of Ashton Hageman/Finn Duffy and Riley van der Vliet/Hanna Schoenmaekers both posting 6-3 wins. Jesse Ballagh put Grove on the board with a 6-2 win in the first singles while Schoenmaekers kept Grovedale in front winning the fourth singles 6-1.
Duffy and Herb Ireland had a mammoth set in the second singles with Ireland the eventual winner in a tie-break, leaving the match result dependent on the remaining third singles.
Remy Cairncross proved too consistent in the last to take the set 6-3 for Ocean Grove, leaving the match tied on sets, but Grovedale had the game advantage, taking the win overall and moved into fourth.
With only 12 points between first and sixth every match is important for teams still in contention.
