{"id":9573,"date":"2016-02-15T15:38:21","date_gmt":"2016-02-15T05:08:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/?p=9573"},"modified":"2016-02-15T15:47:47","modified_gmt":"2016-02-15T05:17:47","slug":"nyrstar-port-pirie-tennis-international-to-celebrate-25-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/news\/2016\/02\/15\/nyrstar-port-pirie-tennis-international-to-celebrate-25-years","title":{"rendered":"Nyrstar Port Pirie Tennis International to celebrate 25 years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Port Pirie will become the longest running <strong>Australian Pro Tour<\/strong> event when the <strong>2016 Nyrstar Port Pirie Tennis International<\/strong> gets under way on Saturday 20 February, marking the 25<sup>th<\/sup> edition of the event.<\/p>\n<p>Local organiser <strong>Neil Lucas<\/strong> said &#8220;the longevity of the event was due to strong local and volunteer support&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have been very lucky to have such a fantastic group of volunteers from the inception of the event to now. The number of people who have put in a great amount of time and effort has been amazing,\u201d Lucas said.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Lucas also praised the support provided by local council and sponsors. \u201cThe Port Pirie Regional Council has been a strong supporter throughout the past 25 years and we have also been lucky to have support from Nyrstar over the years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The 25<sup>th<\/sup> event promises another great week of men\u2019s and women\u2019s tennis, with a strong field set to converge on Port Pirie.<\/p>\n<p>The men\u2019s field is headlined by South Australian world No.252 and top seed <strong>Alex Bolt<\/strong>, with Queenslanders <strong>Gavin Van Peperzeel <\/strong>and <strong>Maverick Banes<\/strong> also set to appear and hungry to make their mark. Local favourite <strong>Daniel Hobart<\/strong>\u00a0(pictured) will be hoping to repeat last year\u2019s effort when he made the semifinals, while Port Lincoln\u2019s <strong>Darren Polkinghorne <\/strong>will be keen to give his year a boost with a strong performance.<\/p>\n<p>In the women\u2019s event world No.190 <strong>Su Jeong Jang<\/strong> will headline the field, but will have Japan\u2019s <strong>Riko Sawayanagi<\/strong> and Chinese Taipei\u2019s <strong>Ya-Hsuan Lee<\/strong> providing tough competition in one of the strongest women\u2019s fields in history. <strong>Kimberly Birrell<\/strong> and <strong>Arina Rodionova<\/strong>, fresh from Federation Cup duties for Australia, will be looking to post strong results to continue their good start to 2016.<\/p>\n<p>Tournament Director <strong>Ty Allen<\/strong> said he was excited by the strength of the field for the Port Pirie event. \u201cIt\u2019s great to be holding the 25<sup>th<\/sup> event here in Port Pirie and to have the field we do is quite fitting for the milestone,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe women\u2019s draw will be particularly strong this year and in the men\u2019s it\u2019s exciting to see a South Australian as top seed, along with Darren Polkinghorne and Daniel Hobart in the main draw.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The 2016 Nyrstar Port Pirie Tennis International will take place at Port Pirie and District Tennis Association, Port Pirie, South Australia from 20-28 February, with main draw singles matches starting on Tuesday 23 February.<\/p>\n<p>For more information on the Australian Pro Tour visit <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/tournaments\/pro-tournaments\/australian-pro-tour\/port-pirie\" target=\"_blank\">tennis.com.au<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Port Pirie will become the longest running Australian Pro Tour event when the 2016 Nyrstar Port Pirie Tennis International gets under way on Saturday 20 February, marking the 25th edition of the event. Local organiser Neil Lucas said &#8220;the longevity of the event was due to strong local and volunteer support&#8221;. \u201cWe have been very [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5870,"featured_media":9579,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5870"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}