{"id":19388,"date":"2018-10-25T09:56:46","date_gmt":"2018-10-24T22:56:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/?p=19388"},"modified":"2018-12-12T13:36:06","modified_gmt":"2018-12-12T02:36:06","slug":"west-lalor-claims-top-honour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/news\/2018\/10\/25\/west-lalor-claims-top-honour","title":{"rendered":"West Lalor claims top honour"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The West Lalor Tennis Club has claimed the state\u2019s top prize at the Tennis Victoria Champions Dinner, hosted at The Pullman, Albert Park on Monday night.<\/p>\n<p>In front of more than 400 guests, the Victorian Tennis Award winners were unveiled during the gala dinner, which also celebrated the 40<sup>th<\/sup> anniversary of the Victorian Tennis Association (now known as Tennis Victoria).<\/p>\n<p>Hosted by Ian Cover, the night saw the awarding of the 12 Victorian Tennis Awards and the celebration of the 2018 Victorian Spirit of Tennis recipients.<\/p>\n<p>This year, the Victorian Spirit of Tennis was awarded \u2013 for the first time \u2013 to a family. Elizabeth, Bill, John and Sally Peers have been a dominant force in Victorian tennis for decades. The Peers family boast a number of titles at Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club and Grand Slam titles in the junior and doubles events as well as Fed Cup and Davis Cup representation<\/p>\n<p>But the night in some ways belonged to the humble team from the West Lalor Tennis Club. Firstly, President Andrew MacNeill who claimed the prestigious Volunteer Achievement award \u2013 sharing it with Donald Smith of the Oakleigh Tennis Club.<\/p>\n<p>MacNeill and the entire team at the West Lalor Tennis Club were soon celebrating further when their club was called out as the 2018 Most Outstanding Club or Centre.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a massive honour to win this award,\u201d MacNeill said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think at the end of the day it\u2019s not about having the best facilities or whatever, it\u2019s about doing the best with what you have got.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s the people who make the club so special,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Tennis Victoria CEO, Matthew Kennedy, was one of the first to congratulate the West Lalor Tennis Club on the honour.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019d like to extend my congratulations to the entire team at the West Lalor Tennis Club on this wonderful accolade,\u201d Kennedy said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s great to see this Club recognised for the outstanding work that they have done over, not only the last 12 months, but a number of years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe work that goes into running a tennis club is immense and the West Lalor Tennis Club has been at the forefront of wanting to be proactive in their delivery of tennis to its community.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"2018 Most Outstanding Club or Centre - West Lalor Tennis Club | Victorian Tennis Awards\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/V9-3QPe12II?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The night saw guests treated to Entertainer of the Year, Brad Blaze. The speed painter demonstrated his incredible skills as he painted three murals of champions Serena Williams, Roger Federer and Lleyton Hewitt.<\/p>\n<p>The trio have spent a combined 709 weeks as the women\u2019s and men\u2019s World No.1s and accumulated 45 singles grand slams.<\/p>\n<p>This year\u2019s winners of the Victorian Tennis Awards now go onto becoming nominees for the Australian Tennis Awards. The national awards will be presented at the 2018 Newcombe Medal to be hosted at the Palladium at Crown.<\/p>\n<p><strong><u>2018 Victorian Tennis Award winners:<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Most Outstanding Club or Centre<\/strong><br \/>\nWest Lalor Tennis Club<\/p>\n<p><strong>Spirit of Tennis<br \/>\n<\/strong>The Peers Family (Elizabeth, Bill, John and Sally)<strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Coaching Excellence \u2013 Club or Centre<\/strong><br \/>\nVicky Lee \u2013 Doncaster Tennis Club<\/p>\n<p><strong>Volunteer Achievement<\/strong><br \/>\nAndrew MacNeill \u2013 West Lalor Tennis Club<br \/>\nDonald Smith \u2013 Oakleigh Tennis Club<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Most Outstanding School<br \/>\n<\/strong>Clayton North Primary School<strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Most Outstanding Tournament<\/strong><strong><em><br \/>\n<\/em><\/strong>AGL Loy Yang Traralgon International, Traralgon Tennis Association<\/p>\n<p><strong>Supporting Tennis \u2013 Local Government Recognition<\/strong><strong><em><br \/>\n<\/em><\/strong>City of Boroondara<\/p>\n<p><strong>Most Outstanding 35+ Tennis Senior<\/strong><strong><em><br \/>\n<\/em><\/strong>Glenn Busby<\/p>\n<p><strong>Most Outstanding Athlete with a Disability<\/strong><strong><em><br \/>\n<\/em><\/strong>Carla Lenarduzzi<\/p>\n<p><strong>Junior Athlete of the Year \u2013 Female<\/strong><strong><em><br \/>\n<\/em><\/strong>Destanee Aiava<\/p>\n<p><strong>Junior Athlete of the Year \u2013 Male<\/strong><strong><em><br \/>\n<\/em><\/strong>Cooper White<\/p>\n<p><strong>Excellence in Officiating<\/strong><strong><em><br \/>\n<\/em><\/strong>Tom Sweeney<\/p>\n<p><strong>Most Outstanding Competition<\/strong><strong><em><br \/>\n<\/em><\/strong>Liston Tennis Club ANZ Tennis Hot Shots Match Play<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Photos from the 2018 Tennis Victoria Champions Dinner can be viewed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/140087299@N05\/albums\/72157697073713980\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>West Lalor Tennis Club wins top award during the Tennis Victoria Champions Dinner<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6038,"featured_media":19389,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6038"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}