Men Go Top!

With the conclusion of Rd 14 last weekend, the team has reached the end of the regular Pennant season.

And it gives me great pleasure to report that our Albert Park Lawn Men’s Grade 9 team finished ON TOP OF OUR LADDER !

How did we achieve this? Well, in our last Tie of the regular season RD 14 – the doubles pairings of Nick & Yuri and Dennis & Alan both managed to win both their doubles matches against Essendon, giving us the full 14 points from the weekend Tie.

While the no.1 team on the ladder who were 1 point in front of us going into this last round (Dunstan Park), only managed to win 3 of their 4 doubles matches, giving them 12 points for their Tie and so we finished on 130 points and Dunstan Park finished on 129 points. You couldn’t write a better script!!

The win and finishing in 1^st place in our sectional ladder, means that we receive a small pennant flag for winning our Grade 9 section and now play the entire grade finals. I would like to acknowledge all our team members for their contributions throughout the season and a hearty congratulations to everyone for this outstanding result for the Club team. (refer ladder below)

By finishing in first place on the ladder, we earn the right to a home final and will play the team that finished in 4^th place – which are the young guys from Narre Warren North, who we have beaten in singles but lost to in doubles – so it should be a great encounter.

So we are playing at home next Saturday afternoon 8^th August. The start time is 12.30pm as for the finals, we have to play 4 singles matches and then 2 doubles matches (so 6 matches in total before lights up).

In terms of who is playing in the finals, we’ll need to choose our strongest team as well as take into account player availability, current injuries and the option of playing different players for the singles and the doubles matches (which has to be recorded on the finals scoresheet at 12.30pm before we start our matches).

As team captain, I will be speaking individually with all team members through this week about selections and once I’ve done this, I will email the team for this weekend’s final around to everyone after our Thursday night practice session at the club. I will also talk with our Club President (Peter) about whether I could put up a few flyers around the clubhouse promoting the final this weekend.

2009 / 10 SUMMER COMPETITION

On another club matter, the club has informed me that there is an oppoortunity to play Saturday afternoon competition throughout the coming Summer with the Bayside Tennis Association. The Association catachment area is effectively Port Melbourne down to approx Hampton (so close proximity) and it has about 8 Men’s Summer grades (1 to 8). The competition is played on Saturday afternoons from early October to late March (with a 5 week break over Xmas and New Year). It is a 13 week season, with both home and away matches. There are 4 players a team with each player playing a singles match (8 game pro-set) and a doubles match (best of 3 tie break sets). The club has offfered to pay the team registration (approx $40) and I am happy to look after the administration. The idea is to get at least 8 guys committed to the season, so that we can all rotate off weekends through the 13 week season. If players are interested and / or you know other membes that would like to play the odd match, could you please email me back before 5pm this Thursday 6^th August.

Once again, congratulations to everyone for our 1^st place finish this season.

Irrespective of the outcome of our finals campaign over the next few weeks, I’ve really enjoyed playing with you all this season and look forward to more tennis with you all in the future. Dpon’t forget, we’ll have a team get together

Team Played Wins Loss Draw Points Albert Park 14 9 3 2 130 Dunstan Park 14 11 2 1 129 Ringwood Catholic 14 9 5 0 122 Narre Warren North 14 7 7 0 110 Greensborough 14 7 7 0 96 Essendon 14 6 8 0 90 Glen Iris Valley 14 3 10 1 57 Eltham 14 2 12 0 50