{"id":14934,"date":"2020-01-14T10:29:23","date_gmt":"2020-01-14T02:29:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/?p=14934"},"modified":"2020-01-14T11:20:30","modified_gmt":"2020-01-14T03:20:30","slug":"australian-seniors-tennis-championships-attracts-top-class-domestic-and-international-field","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/news\/2020\/01\/14\/australian-seniors-tennis-championships-attracts-top-class-domestic-and-international-field","title":{"rendered":"Australian Seniors Tennis Championships attracts top class domestic &amp; international field"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <strong>2020 Australian National Seniors Championship<\/strong> continues this week at the <strong>Busselton Tennis Club,<\/strong> following the staging of the successful Teams Carnival, which wrapped up on Friday.\u00a0 The Carnival featured 730 players from across the country, as well as international representation from Japan, Malaysia and New Zealand.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>For the third year in a row, Queensland claimed the overall Team Carnival Trophy, with WA putting in a dominant performance, winning four divisional titles in the <strong>Women\u2019s 50\/55 category<\/strong>, <strong>Men\u2019s 50\/55<\/strong>, <strong>Men\u2019s 70<\/strong> and<strong> Men\u2019s 80 Division. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In their first appearance at an Australian Seniors Tournament, the <strong>Women\u2019s 50s Team<\/strong> were thrilled to claim their maiden title, with <strong>Team Captain Helen Morgan<\/strong> now eager for her team to continue playing future Seniors Tournaments.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur team is a group of ladies from Nedlands Tennis Club who play league together, and upon learning the Australian Seniors Championships would be held in Busselton this year, we decided to form an over 50s team\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe love our tennis and we\u2019re looking forward to playing a number of matches over the week, with our initial aim being to finish higher than 7th or 8th to avoid an early morning match on the final day!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWinning was just icing on the cake, and now our team members are keen to play in future competitions\u201d Ms Morgan said.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In the Men\u2019s 80\u2019s Division, it was back-to-back titles for the WA Team of <strong>Alan Morcombe (C), Ken Harris, Bill Hawthorn, Don Scott <\/strong>and<strong> Cecil Gardiner, <\/strong>who last year claimed the same division at the 2019 staging of the event in Shepparton, Victoria.\u00a0 <strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Humble in their victory, <strong>Captain Alan Morcombe <\/strong>said Seniors Tennis is the real winner this week.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis win marks two years in a row for our over 80\u2019s team, however the real winner is seniors tennis,\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe camaraderie and fellowship at these events is the reason we participate, and this year, the courts, the facilities and the hospitality at the new Busselton Tennis Club has been second to none\u201d Mr Morcombe said.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Australian Seniors Tennis Championships Teams Carnival Highlight Reel\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/JlT5stM30IY?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 Australian Tennis Seniors Championship continues this week with the prestigious <strong>Grade-A ITF Tournament<\/strong> taking place at the new Busselton Tennis Club, offering singles, doubles and mixed doubles events in 5 year age brackets from the age of 35 years.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The field for this event has a strong international contingent, with players from 18 different countries, including Canada, USA, France, Switzerland, New Zealand, Germany, Algeria, Poland and Italy represented across the tournament.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The international players will line-up against some of the best Australian seniors tennis talent, including local WA Players <strong>Richard Sampson<\/strong> and <strong>Cameron Venables<\/strong>, who, in October took out the 2019 ITF Trabart Cup 40+ in Miami, Florida.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Further bolstering the field for this event, the tournament will feature 6 Young Seniors (35 \u2013 45+) who represented Australia at the ITF Cups in Florida, along with 16 players from the Senior Teams (50 -60+) who represented Australia at the ITF Cups in Portugal, and 27 players from the Super Seniors Teams (65 \u2013 85+) who represented Australia at the ITF Cups in Croatia in 2019.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Australia is certainly no stranger to seniors tennis success, producing two world singles champions, six world doubles champions, six world mixed doubles champions and seven runner-up\u2019s in 2019.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Australian Tennis Seniors Championship <strong>Tournament Director, Joel Goodwin<\/strong> is pleased not only with the calibre of players taking part in this event, but also the camaraderie and team spirit that has been on display during the week.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis event is always a popular event on the Seniors Tennis Calendar, and this year is no different\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have already witnessed some incredible team tennis that has been highly competitive, yet played in the spirit of fellowship that is synonymous with this tournament\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis week we are set to witness an incredible standard of tennis, with some of the best local, interstate and international seniors players all vying for their chance to take home the coveted silverware\u201d Mr Goodwin said.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The Australian Tennis Seniors Championship is being held from the 5-17 January and will feature over 1,000 competitors across the team and individual events.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The Busselton Tennis Club is open to visitors and spectators during the Championships<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong><em><u>Winning WA Teams:<\/u><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Women\u2019s 50\/55 &#8211;<\/strong> Janet Ferreira, Ruhi Lacey, Helen Morgan (C), Barbara Nowak, Nathalie Smalberger<\/p>\n<p><strong>Men\u2019s 50\/55<\/strong> &#8211; Paul Breuer (C), Florjan Frcej, Paul Fry, Bruce Kirkham, Ken McCreery, Eddie Myers<\/p>\n<p><strong>Men\u2019s 70s<\/strong> &#8211; Wayne Firns, Alan Gooch (C), Gordon Gregory, Henry Michael, Ken Pettit, Peter Rigg, Garry Searle<\/p>\n<p><strong>Men\u2019s 80s<\/strong> \u00a0&#8211; Cecil Gardiner, Ken Harris, Bill Hawthorn, Alan Morcombe (C), Don Scott<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 2020 Australian National Seniors Championship continues this week at the Busselton Tennis Club, following the staging of the successful Teams Carnival, which wrapped up on Friday.\u00a0 The Carnival featured 730 players from across the country, as well as international representation from Japan, Malaysia and New Zealand. &nbsp; For the third year in a row, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5812,"featured_media":14935,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5812"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}