7 February 2017 | Tennis ACT

A leading Canberra corporate fundraiser the 2017 P² Invitational will be held on Thursday 9 February at the Canberra Tennis Centre in Lyneham and will feature Australian tennis greats; former world No.15 Wally Masur, former world No.25 John Fitzgerald and former world No.22 Darren Cahill.

Since inception in 2011, the annual tennis event has raised $680,000 for Canberra charities. Now supported by a swarm of local businesses, organisers have strong aspirations to raise $1 million by 2020.

Sponsored by P² (P Squared) Advisory and Harvey Norman Commercial, the 2017 event is set to raise funds for two local Canberra based Charities; AFFIRM and Stella Bella Little Stars Foundation with an aim of raising $100,000.

AFFIRM supports innovative research to further understand mental health issues and develop practical and effective prevention and intervention programs. Funds raised from the 2017 P² Invitational will be directed through AFFIRM through the Centre for Mental Health Research at the ANU to fully fund the project ‘Tools to assess suicide risk in young people’. The project will develop a new screening tool to identify young people who are at risk for mental illness or suicide.

The Stella Bella Little Stars Foundation was founded in 2012 created in honour of Stella Tunks-Frawley, who passed away from cardiac disease in 2010 at only 9 months of age. The foundation supports seriously ill children and their families providing a range of programs and services to assist local families who are caring from children with serious and long term illnesses. The Stella Bella Little Stars Foundation will use their allocation to establish a specialist children’s centre to provide respite to families with sick or terminally ill children.

P² Advisory, the next level in forward thinking accounting and business advisory service, Managing Director Mark Peatey is excited to deliver the tennis event again in 2017 and stood by the selection process.

“Each year we interview charities personally to ensure that funds raised are used for a specific program or a transformational project to provide a significant difference and/or enable the charity to become self-sufficient in the future,” he said.

Peaty continued “Both 2017 recipients make a real difference to the lives of those who are touched by mental illness or seriously ill young children and their families. We are proud and honoured to support these charities in 2017”.

Now a tennis coach and sports commentator, Masur won three singles titles and 16 doubles titles during his professional tennis career. A well known Canberran, he reached the semi-finals of the Australian Open in 1987. In 1993 the semi-finals of the US Open, simultaneously achieving a career-high singles ranking of world No.15. Masur captained the Davis Cup team in 2015 leading the squad to the semi-finals and in 2016 was inducted into the inaugural Tennis ACT Walk of Fame.

During his career, Fitzgerald won six top-level singles titles and 30 tour doubles titles, including seven Grand Slam doubles titles, and a career men’s doubles at all four Grand Slams. He was a member of the Australian Davis Cup team which won the championship in both 1983 and 1986. In 1988, he reached a career-high singles ranking of world No. 25 and in 1991 a world No.1 doubles ranking.

Another former Australian professional tennis player, Cahill reached his career peak doubles ranking in 1989 of world No.10 and a career high singles ranking of world No.22 in 1989. He was a member of the Australian team which reached the final of the Davis Cup in 1990. Since retiring from the tour, Cahill has been a successful tennis coach, guiding Lleyton Hewitt to become the youngest player ever ranked world No.1. After Hewitt, Cahill coached Andre Agassi, who under Cahill became the oldest player ever to be ranked world No.1 in May 2003. Cahill is now a tennis analyst for the Grand Slam events on the US sports network ESPN and a coach with the Adidas Player Development Program.

The 2017 P² Invitational is on at the Canberra Tennis Centre, Lyneham from 12:30pm on Thursday 9 February 2017. Centre court tiered seating will be available for public spectators and entry is free.