{"id":9559,"date":"2020-11-20T18:01:12","date_gmt":"2020-11-20T07:01:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/tas\/?p=9559"},"modified":"2020-11-20T18:17:59","modified_gmt":"2020-11-20T07:17:59","slug":"tennis-north-vs-north-west-tennis-league-challenge-set-for-saturday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/tas\/news\/2020\/11\/20\/tennis-north-vs-north-west-tennis-league-challenge-set-for-saturday","title":{"rendered":"Tennis North vs North West Tennis League Challenge all set"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Almost 100 Tasmanian tennis players will come together on Saturday 21 November for the annual Tennis North versus the North West Tennis League Challenge<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Held this year in Launceston at two venues, Tennis World Launceston<\/strong> and the Newstead Tennis and Squash Centre<\/strong>, the event will see singles and doubles matches contested across five divisions, culminating in a social barbeque at the end of the Gala Day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

North West Tennis League<\/strong> committee member Shaun Summers <\/strong>believes the popularity of the current NWTL season has contributed to not only the calibre of Saturday\u2019s field of players, but has helped to connect the two regions on and off the court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAfter a\nbreak from competition, the North West Tennis League is now in its fourth year,\nand it\u2019s been the strongest year so far,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA lot of\ncurrent and former college players are taking part, with a lot of players\ntravelling from the North to compete, led by Sam Whitehead and Ruben McCormack,\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Burnie\u2019s Elliot Johnstone <\/strong>(pictured above with Ben Cawston) echoes Summers\u2019 sentiment, having noticed a lift in the standard of play since returning to the island state following the end of his time overseas at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, the same college Whitehead recently received a scholarship offer to attend. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBefore I\nleft for college in 2014 the North West Tennis League wasn\u2019t super competitive,\nbut now you have to be switched on for entire matches, such is the level that\nit\u2019s at,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs a\ncollective, the players representing the North West are really hungry to win on\nSaturday, we really want to beat them, but we\u2019re also looking forward to catch\nup when the games are done.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re hopeful of having the Southern region get involved with similar challenges days in the future, as the highlight of events like this is socialising with players from all around the state.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Anna Peake will represent the North West Tennis League on Saturday \/ pic: The Advocate<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Summers, who co-organised the Gala Day with Tennis North President Craig Boyce<\/strong>, is looking forward to seeing the planning come to life on Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt will be\nreally competitive and we\u2019re excited to see some of the state\u2019s best players in\ntheir respective divisions challenge each other,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s grown\nfrom what we\u2019d originally planned and created a lot of interest, which is\ngreat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe friendly\nrivalry has been heating up online and in the local media, which has added to a\nreally good build up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boyce believes\nthe hiatus in play due to the pandemic has seen players keener than ever for\nmatch play opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had Tennis North<\/strong> pennants running all year, with the ladies\u2019 midweek tennis going particularly well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re\npleased to be able to enter player across five divisions on Saturday, with the age\nrange of participants ranging from one player who is 12 through to players in\ntheir eighties.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have\naimed for the event to be family-friendly, social and inclusive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTennis is\na great game for all skill levels, and we\u2019ve tried to match up players so that\nthe matches will be competitive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boyce says\nteamwork was the key to the event going ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShaun has made a shield and trophies for the competitors, which is great, and we\u2019ve had strong support from James Bolzonello, Ben Holden and all of the players from the clubs in both regions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Tennis North junior player Campbell Young in action \/ pic: The Examiner<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Summers is optimistic\nof the event fueling the fire for more interregional challenges in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re\nreally looking forward to building relationships between the different regions\nin the state and communicating with each other moving forward,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all\nabout doing our part to grow the sense of community among tennis players in\nTasmania.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tennis North versus the North West Tennis League Challenge commences across the two aforementioned clubs from 9:30am on Saturday 21 November, with five divisions to run including A Grade, Reserve, Womens\u2019, 50-plus, and juniors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Almost 100 Tasmanian tennis players across five divisions will meet in Launceston on Saturday<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6260,"featured_media":9561,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,227],"tags":[245,246],"class_list":["post-9559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-team-tennis","tag-nwtl","tag-tennis-north"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/tas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/tas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/tas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/tas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6260"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/tas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/tas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/tas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/tas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/tas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/tas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}