{"id":2678,"date":"2011-08-11T05:39:07","date_gmt":"2011-08-10T21:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/?p=2678"},"modified":"2011-08-11T05:39:07","modified_gmt":"2011-08-10T21:39:07","slug":"national-tennis-league-wa-pilot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/news\/2011\/08\/11\/national-tennis-league-wa-pilot","title":{"rendered":"National Tennis League &#8211; WA (Pilot)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In  late 2011 Tennis West, in conjunction with Tennis Victoria, Tennis SA  and Tennis Australia, will be launching a ground-breaking  pilot of the <strong>National Tennis League (NTL)<\/strong>.\u00a0 The pilot will create  income opportunities for aspiring players, lift the profile of tennis  locally by anchoring tennis with a league competition, enhance the  profile of those clubs involved and contribute to the  national relevance of the sport.<\/p>\n<p>One  of the primary objectives of the National Tennis League is to increase  the player income opportunities for athletes and increase  the professional tennis landscape within Australia.\u00a0 Tennis Australia  will provide funds to assist the NTL Conferences in providing base  player payments and prize money to the players who compete in these  leagues.<\/p>\n<p>The  finalists from the NTL-WA League will become eligible to participate in  the National Tennis League final in Melbourne.\u00a0 The NTL  Final will be played during the second week of the Australian Open at  Melbourne Park.\u00a0 The two finalists in the men\u2019s and women\u2019s league will  compete against the two finalists from the NTL-Vic and NTL-SA leagues.<\/p>\n<p>The  NTL Final during the Australian Open will provide a unique professional  experience for the clubs and their respective players.\u00a0  Players \/ Coaches and Club Administrators will attend a welcome  function prior to the commencement of the NTL final.\u00a0 Players \/ Coaches  will also have access to other AO experiences such as high quality  officials, transport and the overall AO experience.<\/p>\n<p>This  initiative is certain to be well received by all involved with the  player payments and opportunities sure to attract a calibre of top  state, national and even international players to compete  in the league.<\/p>\n<p>The introduction of the exciting \u2018wildcard\u2019 player allows teams to recruit <strong>ANY<\/strong> player for a once off inclusion to the league. This component  allows for the ultimate diversity of players to the competition. Who  knows, Joe Bloggs from down the road could have his day against Roger  Federer!<\/p>\n<p>\u201c  This is an incredible opportunity for local aspiring players to compete  against seasoned tour players. A minimum of one under 18 year old  player per team will give Australian juniors the chance  to play in the strongest adult league. This in turn will assist our top  junior athletes transition to the Men\u2019s and Women\u2019s game respectively.  It is sure to be a spectacle to see the teams represent their home state  on the biggest stage in Australia. \u201c Shane  Smedley, NTL-WA League Director.<\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"attachment wp-att-2680\" href=\"http:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/news\/2011\/08\/11\/national-tennis-league-wa-pilot\/attachment\/ntl_wa-conference-2\">Click here for the full NTL-WA Pilot informaion document<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>The  National Tennis League is due to kick off in October. For more  information regarding the league, please click the NTL -WA (pilot) document  attached above or contact Shane Smedley (League Director) on 0423 399 975.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In late 2011 Tennis West, in conjunction with Tennis Victoria, Tennis SA and Tennis Australia, will be launching a ground-breaking pilot of the National Tennis League (NTL).\u00a0 The pilot will create income opportunities for aspiring players, lift the profile of tennis locally by anchoring tennis with a league competition, enhance the profile of those clubs [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5894,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2678","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\/5894"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2678\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}