{"id":9701,"date":"2014-12-22T09:21:44","date_gmt":"2014-12-22T01:21:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/?p=9701"},"modified":"2014-12-22T09:21:44","modified_gmt":"2014-12-22T01:21:44","slug":"esperance-cheering-for-roger-federer-at-australian-open-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/news\/2014\/12\/22\/esperance-cheering-for-roger-federer-at-australian-open-2015","title":{"rendered":"Esperance Cheering for Roger Federer at Australian Open 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Federer<\/a><\/p>\n

Esperance<\/strong>, situated on WA\u2019s far South Coast, will be cheering on former world No.1 Roger Federer<\/strong> at Australian Open 2015.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Esperance finished 2014 as Australia\u2019s third most enthusiastic tennis town, narrowly edged out by Kendall (NSW) and Casino (NSW) to top the AO Tennis Blitz town leaderboard. Kendall won the choice of which world No.1 player to throw their support behind, selecting Novak Djokovic<\/strong> over fellow world No.1 Serena Williams.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When Esperance Southcoast Tennis Club AO Blitz coordinator Amanda Anderson was contacted by Tennis Australia with news that Roger Federer was going to be playing for Esperance at the 2015 Australian Open she was in disbelief.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just amazing, ridiculous,\u201d Amanda said, \u201cRoger is just about everyone in the world\u2019s favourite tennis player.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Excitement had already surrounded the AO Blitz results when Southcoast had secured the State top spot and ended up third nationally. Ranking third nationally was always going to guarantee a highly ranked player for Esperance at the Australian Open.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In WA, Esperance edged out Applecross and Albany who ended up 16th and 30th respectively.<\/p>\n

No one in the Club dreamed that it would be possible for the Club to be State winners again let alone be served up the world\u2019s favourite and former No 1 tennis player Roger Federer.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The spotlight will be on the Fed and Esperance during the Grand Slam event being held in Melbourne commencing January 19th.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There was a fierce rivalry between the top towns during the final weeks of the online \u2018Hit the Target\u2019 competition and multiple first place changes over the course of the competition. The top 20 town-player match-ups are as follows:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
1<\/td>\nNovak Djokovic – Kendall (NSW)<\/td>\n11<\/td>\nAndy Murray – Melbourne (VIC)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2<\/td>\nSerena Williams – Casino (NSW)<\/td>\n12<\/td>\nAgnieszka Radwanska – Grafton (NSW)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
3<\/td>\nRoger Federer – Esperance (WA)<\/td>\n13<\/td>\nTomas Berdych – Moulden (NT)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
4<\/td>\nMaria Sharapova – Inverell (NSW)<\/td>\n14<\/td>\nEugenie Bouchard – Mornington (VIC)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
5<\/td>\nRafael Nadal – Warrnambool (VIC)<\/td>\n15<\/td>\nJuan Martin Del Potro – Henley Beach (SA)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
6<\/td>\nSimona Halep – Melton South (VIC)<\/td>\n16<\/td>\nCaroline Wozniacki – Applecross (WA)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
7<\/td>\nStan Wawrinka – Templestowe (VIC)<\/td>\n17<\/td>\nMilos Raonic – Coolum Beach (QLD)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
8<\/td>\nPetra Kvitova – Barraba (NSW)<\/td>\n18<\/td>\nAngelique Kerber – Ivanhoe (VIC)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
9<\/td>\nKei Nishikori – Sunbury (VIC)<\/td>\n19<\/td>\nMarin Cilic – Harrison (ACT)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
10<\/td>\nAna Ivanovic – Biloela (QLD)<\/td>\n20<\/td>\nDominika Cibulkova – Mosman (NSW)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n

The AO Tennis Blitz aligns all main draw players, 128 men and 128 women, with the top 256 ranked towns with Australian Open players based on their world ranking on the date of acceptance into the event. For more information on how points were awarded to towns please visit tennis.com.au.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

By taking part in the online game Hit the Target, Jim Rutherford<\/strong> (Kendall, NSW) and Rachel O\u2019Connor<\/strong> (Warrnambool, Vic) have won a once in a lifetime opportunity to hit on centre court on Saturday 17 January 2015.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In WA, Applecross Tennis Club<\/strong> won the Ultimate Club Challenge state prize, consisting of a $5000 tennis grant. For more information on what the Tennis Club did to win this prize, see the full article available here.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Applecross Senior High School<\/strong> was also lucky enough to win the Ultimate School Challenge for WA and have been awarded with a $5000 tennis grant. For more information click here.<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Top 100 town leaderboard and top 100 men\u2019s and women\u2019s player-town list is available here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Esperance, situated on WA\u2019s far South Coast, will be cheering on former world No.1 Roger Federer at Australian Open 2015.   Esperance finished 2014 as Australia\u2019s third most enthusiastic tennis town, narrowly edged out by Kendall (NSW) and Casino (NSW) to top the AO Tennis Blitz town leaderboard. Kendall won the choice of which world […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5812,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9701","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=9701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9701\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}