{"id":27355,"date":"2025-09-12T18:19:15","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T08:19:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/?p=27355"},"modified":"2025-09-12T18:19:27","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T08:19:27","slug":"sweeny-polmans-cabrera-survive-scares-as-regional-tennis-stars-shine-in-tamworth-and-wagga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/news\/2025\/09\/12\/sweeny-polmans-cabrera-survive-scares-as-regional-tennis-stars-shine-in-tamworth-and-wagga","title":{"rendered":"Sweeny, Polmans, Cabrera Survive Scares as Regional Tennis Stars Shine in Tamworth and Wagga"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
He\u2019s already won four titles around the world this year and Dane Sweeny credited his mental composure for taking a huge step to a fifth as he scrapped his way into the semi-finals at the Capital of Country International in Tamworth.<\/div>\n
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Sweeny, 24, prevailed in a wild match against fifth seed Pavle Marinkov \u2013 remaining on track to lift his world ranking inside the top 400 \u2013 with a 6-0, 1-6, 6-3 win in front of a healthy crowd at The Courts at East.<\/div>\n
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The top ranked player heading into the first of two events at Tamworth, Sweeny remains on course for a showdown with second seed Marc Polmans, who had a far easier time sweeping past Colin Sinclair 6-3, 6-1 in his last eight clash.<\/div>\n
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Sweeny looked in cruise control when he raced away with the first set, but momentum quickly changed with 19-year-old Marinkov wresting control of the second set.<\/div>\n
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Sweeny would have been forgiven for losing his cool in the decider as he twice broke Marinkov\u2019s serve early before immediately surrendering the advantage.<\/div>\n
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But after five straight games in which neither player could hold \u2013 including three for Marinkov \u2013 Sweeny scored the decisive advantage before closing out the match in just under two hours.<\/div>\n
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\u201cI was all over him in the first set, and he wasn\u2019t playing his best going for too much and giving me a lot of errors,\u201d Sweeny said.<\/div>\n
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\u201cI was actually a little bit tight at the start of the second, played a shaky service game and all of a sudden he\u2019s up 2-0, 3-0 and he\u2019s got the ball rolling. When he\u2019s in the lead, he\u2019s very good as he\u2019s quite aggressive with a big serve.<\/div>\n
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\u201cI did a really good job to reset for the third set, sticking to my guns, playing tactically smart. I ended up staying really calm and I think that\u2019s what won me the match.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Sweeny has already won ITF events in San Diego, Taipei and twice in Brisbane this year and will look to continue his Australian swing with success in the country music capital.<\/div>\n
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It was the third time Sweeny has triumphed over Marinkov in the past month, with all three wins including at least a set which he claimed 6-0.<\/div>\n
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Polmans, ranked just five spots below Sweeny on the ATP rankings, needed only an hour and 17 minutes to advance to the final four with his third successive lifetime win over Sinclair.<\/div>\n
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\u201cI was happy to get through in straight sets today,\u201d Polmans said after playing twice on Thursday to catch up for the rain-marred start to the week.<\/div>\n
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\u201cColin has always been a tricky opponent for me. He\u2019s got a great serve and you have to be very focused. I\u2019m happy I got that first set and got the ball rolling in the second.<\/div>\n
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\u201cIt\u2019s my first time in Tamworth, but I\u2019m really impressed with the facilities. It\u2019s great with a lot of courts to practise on and the match courts are all the same. It\u2019s great to have two tournaments here. Very impressed.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Polmans will play Turkish qualifier Mustafa Ege Sik in the semi-finals after the 16-year-old continued his remarkable run this week with a punishing 6-3, 7-6(5) win over Enzo Aguiard. The match lasted more than two hours.<\/div>\n
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Sweeny will take on Poland\u2019s Filip Peliwo in the other final four showdown.<\/div>\n
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In Wagga Wagga, women\u2019s top seed Lizette Cabrera faced a similar battle to Sweeny, forced to save a match point and go deep into the third set to eventually see off Japan\u2019s Erika Sema 4-6, 6-2, 7-5 at Jim Elphick Tennis Centre.<\/div>\n
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It was a big scare for the 27-year-old Cabrera, who is on the cusp of creeping back inside the world\u2019s top 200.<\/div>\n
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Great Britain\u2019s United Cup representative Katie Swan continued her march through the main draw with a ruthless 6-1, 6-0 win over New Zealand\u2019s ninth seed Monique Barry, while Taylah Preston won the big moments against Hayu Kinoshita in a 7-6(7), 6-3 result.<\/div>\n
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Elena Micic ensured the top four seeds all made the semi-finals of the Wagga Wagga Tennis International with a 2-6, 6-4, 6-1 win over Japan\u2019s Haruna Arakawa.<\/div>\n
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Tennis NSW is staging ITF events in regional NSW for the first time, with men\u2019s and women\u2019s players to feature in back-to-back tournaments in the respective towns.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He\u2019s already won four titles around the world this year and Dane Sweeny credited his mental composure for taking a huge step to a fifth as he scrapped his way into the semi-finals at the Capital of Country International in Tamworth. \u00a0 Sweeny, 24, prevailed in a wild match against fifth seed Pavle Marinkov \u2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6323,"featured_media":27356,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6323"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}