Blackwood
Tennis Club Juniors just seem to be going from strength to strength with this
year again seeing an increase in the number of Junior members at our club and
so consequently an increase in the number of teams. This all started with a
very successful winter season which saw us field 4 boys Teams and 3 girls teams
from which we gained premierships in Div 3 and Div 6 girls, Div 8 and Div 9
boys and runners-up in Div 1 boys. This was a great effort and thanks must go
to all the Team Supervisors who took on the task of organising the teams.
Winter is run a little differently to summer whereby the Club helps to get the
teams started and then a Supervisor is nominated or volunteers to organize each
team for the winter season, thank you to those people concerned and
congratulations to the winning teams, runners-ups and to all those who
participated.
I would
also like to take this opportunity to congratulate Carl Lundborg who last
Summer Season was awarded Rookie of the year with the SDTA Junior Activities
which is an award for the most successful first year player within the
Association. Carl was presented with this award at the Summer Season SDTA
Junior presentation day.
On to the
summer season which again saw our number of girls teams increase from 8 teams
last year to 12 teams this year giving Blackwood Club the greatest number of
girls teams in the SDTA and the boys going from 15 last year to 16 this year
which equates to 28 teams in total making us the largest Junior Club along with
Mercedes in the SDTA Junior competition. Given those statistics it does not
take much to work out that it takes a lot of time and commitment to put all of
these teams on the courts each Friday night and Saturday morning and to Eric Lundborg,
Graham Cahill and Robert Hayes all I can say is without you guys I really do
not know how we could make this happen so efficiently and smoothly. We again
started off having pre season practice sessions over six weeks which proved to
be a huge success and very beneficial in ranking the players into a division
and team that matched their playing ability. Clearly the selection committee of
Graham Cahill, Robert Hayes, Eric Lundborg, Peter Broughton and myself must
have done some homework because at the time of writing this report Blackwood
has at least 12 of the 16 boys teams that should finish in the finals and 11 of
the 12 girls teams in the top 4 to compete in the finals clearly an excellent
and very pleasing result. I think this shows that the club has achieved the
right balance of success and challenge for juniors so that players have the
opportunity to be tested and develop their skills, and at the same time have
the chance of finals success. Few if
any complaints have been received from parents and the results have not shown
any glaring errors where players are either winning or losing 6-0 every
week. After a few teething problems
early in the season, with new parents learning the ropes of supervising, made
more difficult with ‘home’ games at ‘away’ venues (Gibbs Park and Clovelly
Park), both parents and players have enjoyed the season with enthusiasm and
ongoing commitment at most levels. The next challenge is the finals and
supporting our teams to achieve their best and hopefully some grand final
success.
Just on
finishing I would like to say that it is impossible to have such a successful
season without the dedication, help and support of everyone involved with the
junior tennis so again I would just like to say thank you to Eric Lundborg for
his involvement mainly with the girls, Graham Cahill and Robert Hayes for the
boys, Peter Broughton for his overall help and attending the SDTA Junior
meetings with myself every month and to all the parents who take their turn to
supervise and transport each week and we look forward to the same dedication
and commitment in the coming winter season and again next summer season. It is
also with regret that Graham Cahill has announced that he will not be taking on
the position of Junior Boys Co-ordinatior again next summer season, so I would
like to take this opportunity to thank Graham for all his work over the past 5
or so years and hope that someone will see this as a great opportunity for them
to become involved with the Blackwood Tennis Club Juniors and ensure that we
can have continued success within the Club.
Kaye Lewis