{"id":21565,"date":"2026-03-06T10:31:23","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T02:31:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/?p=21565"},"modified":"2026-03-06T10:32:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T02:32:12","slug":"national-league-finals-2026-pilot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/news\/2026\/03\/06\/national-league-finals-2026-pilot","title":{"rendered":"National League Finals &#8211; 2026 Pilot"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Tennis Australia is piloting a national leagues pathway, providing the ability for teams to graduate past their local league.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Date:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Friday 16 October \u2013 Sunday 18 October 2026.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Venue:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>TBC<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Events:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Open Doubles (any combination of men and women) &amp; Women\u2019s Only Doubles.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Match Format:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Round robin.<\/li>\n<li>4 rubbers per match (Pair 1 v Pair 1, Pair 2 v Pair 2, then swap).<\/li>\n<li>Each rubber played first to 6, with a tiebreak played at 6-6, normal deuce.<\/li>\n<li>4-6 players can be used per match (5th and 6th player can substitute in the 3rd and 4th rubbers).<\/li>\n<li>Teams must have a minimum of 4 players to a maximum of 8 players.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Method of Acceptance:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>All eligible and available teams to enter, with Tennis Australia to then finalise teams.<\/li>\n<li>Teams will be chosen based on competitive balance and geographical location \u2013 ensuring we have even representation across Australia.<\/li>\n<li>Not all teams will be accepted.<\/li>\n<li>Based on final numbers, sections will be used within events to again, create level-based play.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Minimum Age:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The minimum age for inclusion will be 18.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Winners:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>National Finals winning team members will each receive a \u2018Signature Suite\u2019 experience during the AO, a flag for the club and trophies.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Qualification:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Teams will need to have won their Tennis West 2025_2026 Summer League Division as the pathway through to the 2026 Pilot.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Based upon Tennis Australia\u2019s pilot, the following divisional winners will be invited to participate in the National League Finals Pilot for 2026:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Tennis West Saturday Men\u2019s Open Division 5 \u2013 Division 15.<\/li>\n<li>Tennis West Saturday Women\u2019s Open Division 2 \u2013 3.<\/li>\n<li>Tennis West Sunday Mixed Divisions 1 &amp; 2.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Closing Date for Entries:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>9am Monday 27 July 2026.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Note: Costs are at the player\u2019s expense.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>If you have any further questions, please email <a href=\"mailto:shane.smedley@tennis.com.au\">shane.smedley@tennis.com.au<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tennis Australia is piloting a national leagues pathway, providing the ability for teams to graduate past their local league.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6359,"featured_media":21566,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21565","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\/21565","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\/6359"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}