{"id":8052,"date":"2013-12-06T16:46:22","date_gmt":"2013-12-06T08:46:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/?p=8052"},"modified":"2013-12-06T16:46:22","modified_gmt":"2013-12-06T08:46:22","slug":"midland-top-dogs-in-atl-womens-final-in-western-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/news\/2013\/12\/06\/midland-top-dogs-in-atl-womens-final-in-western-australia","title":{"rendered":"Midland Top Dogs in ATL Women’s Final in Western Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Perfect timing on Sunday afternoon delivered the opening ceremony just after the rain shower and saw the first ball hit on dry court. City Beach Tennis Club<\/strong> began the celebrations early in the day with coaching clinics, cardio blasts, interclub social play, bouncy castle and Zumba. The players, ballkids, officials and signage added colour to the row of grass courts below the clubhouse and grassy bank.\u00a0 Music added to the razzmatazz and the smell of a bbq added the final touch for spectators.<\/p>\n

After beating the Mad Dogs<\/strong> by a set the week before, the Slammers<\/strong> were favourites and Midland<\/strong> the underdogs. The Slammers<\/strong> chose to play Katy O\u2019Shea<\/strong> in the number one singles against 15 year old rising star Maddy Inglis<\/strong>. The home crowd were thrilled when Katy<\/strong> won the first set 4-0, but Maddy<\/strong> then used her consistent forehand to resist Katy\u2019s power shots and served well to take the next two sets 4-3, 4-3.\u00a0\u00a0Anja Dokic<\/strong> became the Slammers\u2019<\/strong> only singles winner, 4-0, 4-2 over Teiwa Casey<\/strong>. Midland<\/strong> captain Jess Chaine<\/strong> beat Marissa Gianotti<\/strong> 4-3, 4-3 at number 4 and the less fancied Kristy Jones<\/strong> was victorious over Shona Lee<\/strong> 4-2, 4-0.<\/p>\n

With three singles in hand, the Mad Dogs<\/strong> had a strong lead. This soon vanished when the Slammers<\/strong> won the opening sets of both the doubles at a cost of only one game, stepping into a winning position. If they could duplicate that they would win the title.\u00a0 Dokic<\/strong> and Lee<\/strong> did their part defeating Chaine<\/strong> and Jones<\/strong> 4-0, 4-1.Then the Inglis\/Casey<\/strong> pair dug in to win the second set 4-3, forcing a tie-breaker to decide the rubber and the match. Slammers<\/strong> calculations told them and their supporters that if they won the tie-break they would win on games. O\u2019Shea<\/strong> and Sheed<\/strong> led 4-2 and then 7-5 as they changed ends. At 8 all Inglis<\/strong> delivered a backhand cross court to earn match point. Team manager, Cameron Fenner<\/strong>, held his breath for two more points, then Casey<\/strong> hit a volley to clinch the event and the $6000 prize money. The Slammers<\/strong> team consoled themselves with $3000 for their efforts, while the Midland<\/strong> team began planning their trip to the Australian Open<\/strong> for the ATL<\/strong> Play-offs on January 20th<\/sup> and 21st<\/sup>. \u00a0In Melbourne<\/strong> Park<\/strong> they will face the Shaw Park Sharks<\/strong> from Queensland<\/strong> who also won their final on Sunday, as well as teams from 3 other Australian<\/strong> conferences, \u00a0and Korea<\/strong>, Oceania<\/strong> and New Zealand<\/strong>. The girls feel that they have nothing to lose and will do the best they can to be top dogs once more.<\/p>\n

The play-off for third spot was undecided until the last doubles with the Sara Stikic<\/strong> and Charleen Tiwari<\/strong> too strong for mother and daughter, Geraldine<\/strong> and Maddy Watson<\/strong>. The Cubs suffered without Georgia<\/strong> Prendergast<\/strong> during the ATL<\/strong> and the young Wizards<\/strong> held their third position.<\/p>\n

The Asia-Pacific tennis league<\/strong> brings $350,000 in total prize money <\/strong>to players and clubs in Australia<\/strong>, with the conferences earning $100,000, plus $140,000 in player payments<\/strong>. During the play-offs, teams will vie for a share of $110,000. In addition, a club in each conference, will be awarded a \u201cPlaces to Play\u201d Community Spirit Award to the value of $5,000<\/strong>, for the best support of the ATL<\/strong> in their conference. 53 teams have competed in the conferences and they have 3,500+ friends, fans or followers on social media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Perfect timing on Sunday afternoon delivered the opening ceremony just after the rain shower and saw the first ball hit on dry court. City Beach Tennis Club began the celebrations early in the day with coaching clinics, cardio blasts, interclub social play, bouncy castle and Zumba. The players, ballkids, officials and signage added colour to […]<\/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-8052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8052","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=8052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8052\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}