Hampton Park tennis talents Rachel Drew and Jaesha Bacatan helped their club win its Davis Cup-style challenge against Dandenong last week.By Marc McGowan
HAMPTON Park Tennis Club won the inaugural club challenge with Dandenong Tennis Club at its Robert Booth Reserve courts last Wednesday.
Head coaches Tim Symons and Valoja Illangasinghe, of Hampton Park and Dandenong respectively, created the concept, labelled it a winner and hope to run it twice a year.
The Narre Warren residents are also involved in the coaching of Waverley Tennis’ elite junior program at Doveton.
The format involved two A-grade competitions – one male and one female team each – and a beginners’ unisex contest.
Around 20 children took part in the challenge, with most competitors playing one singles and two doubles matches.
Hampton Park triumphed in both A-grade clashes, while Dandenong prevailed in the beginners’ match-up – giving the former a 90-70 overall victory.
Symons, who has coached for a decade at Hampton Park, Doveton and Belgrave Tennis Clubs, was thrilled with the event and hoped it would continue to develop.
“We had a great time on the night and Valoja and my kids were really excited leading up to it,” he said. “It was very friendly – we had a barbecue afterwards – and we encouraged the kids to get to know each other. Tennis is a pretty individual game, so to get the chance to play in a team of 10 against another club is fantastic.”
Illangasinghe, who has been involved in the sport for more than 20 years and still plays at grade-one Pennant level, was equally glowing in his praise of the concept.
“It was really good and we hope to make it bigger and involve more kids in the future,” he said. “We’re looking at holding another one over the next couple of terms before winter while the weather is still pretty good.”
