{"id":12673,"date":"2017-11-28T15:12:43","date_gmt":"2017-11-28T04:12:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/?p=12673"},"modified":"2017-11-28T15:14:26","modified_gmt":"2017-11-28T04:14:26","slug":"walter-balodis-claim-australian-honours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/news\/2017\/11\/28\/walter-balodis-claim-australian-honours","title":{"rendered":"Walter &amp; Balodis claim Australian honours"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Canberra\u2019s <strong>Emma Walter <\/strong>and <strong>Ros Balodis <\/strong>have been named Australia\u2019s best after taking out awards at the Newcombe Medal, Australian Tennis Awards in Melbourne on Monday night.<\/p>\n<p>After being a finalist in 2015 and 2016, it was third time lucky for Walter who received the award for <strong>Excellence in Officiating<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Walter said she was pleasantly surprised to receive the award.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is such a wonderful honour and privilege\u00a0to be the recipient of this award.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have so many dedicated officials working here in Australia and overseas, so it is very humbling to be recognised in this way<em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u00a0<\/em>\u201cI love being part of officiating &#8211;\u00a0being part of this great sport, working with some amazing people and the challenges of continually learning and developing through your experiences,\u201d Walter added.<\/p>\n<p>Walter started the year acting as a chair umpire at the Australian Open 2017, before heading overseas to the Netherlands and UK.<\/p>\n<p>She chaired junior matches at Wimbledon and was selected as a line umpire for the US Open men\u2019s singles final between <strong>Rafael Nadal <\/strong>(ESP) and <strong>Kevin Anderson <\/strong>(RSA).<\/p>\n<p>Walter has also been heavily involved with officiating at the grassroots level and is a driving force in promoting and developing officials in the ACT.<\/p>\n<p>With the Australian Summer of Tennis ahead, Walter will officiate at the Brisbane International and Hobart International, before heading to the Australian Open 2018.<\/p>\n<p>Balodis claimed the title of <strong>Most Outstanding 35+ Tennis Senior <\/strong>for the third time in her career after also winning the crown in 2013 and 2014.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s an amazing shock to win this year, there has been so many good seniors\u2019 results.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJust being here for the evening is an inspiration to see so many fantastic results from our Australian players and makes you want to keep playing and improving,\u201d Balodis said.<\/p>\n<p>It has been another big year for Balodis who in September was inducted into the Tennis ACT Walk of Fame.<\/p>\n<p>She recently returned from the USA where along with fellow Canberran <strong>Narelle Raftery <\/strong>they took out gold in the <strong>Maureen Connelly Cup <\/strong>at the ITF World Team Championships.<\/p>\n<p>Balodis then combined with <strong>Leanne Swaysland <\/strong>(NSW) to win the Women\u2019s 55+ Doubles title.<\/p>\n<p>Balodis boasts a remarkable record, with a 95 per cent winning ratio (206 wins to 11 losses) at international level, and has maintained an unbeaten singles record at the Australian Tennis Seniors 35+ Championships of 18 titles dating back to 1998.<\/p>\n<p>The awards highlighted the strength of tennis in the capital with a record five finalists for the Australian Tennis Awards, along with <strong>Nick Kyrgios<\/strong> as a <strong>Newcombe Medal<\/strong> nominee.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Giralang Primary School <\/strong>were a finalist for Most Outstanding School, <strong>Frank Calabria <\/strong>for Coaching Excellence, Club, and the <strong>ACT Claycourt International <\/strong>for Most Outstanding Professional Tournament.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ashleigh Barty <\/strong>claimed the Newcombe Medal after edging out fellow nominees Kyrgios, <strong>Daria Gavrilova <\/strong>(Vic), <strong>John Peers <\/strong>(Vic) and <strong>Jordan Thompson <\/strong>(NSW).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Canberra\u2019s Emma Walter and Ros Balodis have been named Australia\u2019s best after taking out awards at the Newcombe Medal, Australian Tennis Awards in Melbourne on Monday night. After being a finalist in 2015 and 2016, it was third time lucky for Walter who received the award for Excellence in Officiating. Walter said she was pleasantly [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5789,"featured_media":12681,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5789"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}