SW serves up tennis talent

Five South West tennis juniors will test themselves against regional Australia’s best young talent when they travel to Melbourne for the Foundation Cup next month.

Bunbury will add to its reputation as a breeding ground for tennis tyros when it supplies more than half of the eight-person WA team that will compete at the 13 and under tournament, which forms part of the Australian Made Summer of Tennis, a joint initiative of the Australian Made Campaign and the Fed Cup Foundation.

South West residents Michael Frayne, Josh Tait, Kennethe Prete and Connor Lord form the entire boys’ team while Rhiannon Ryder will represent the region’s girls.

All five players were selected based on their performance at State team trials in Geraldton last month.

Bunbury Tennis Excellence head coach Andrew Woodward, who mentors four of the five players, said he was not surprised to see such a strong South West flavour to the squad.

“We have had pretty good results the last couple of years so we sort of expected it, ” he said.

“We had the four top seeds in the boys’ tournament but they played exceptionally well and everyone was impressed with the standard of tennis on display.

“We are very lucky to have a good environment here in Bunbury and heaps of kids who push each other along.”

The team will compete at the Royal South Yarra Lawn Tennis Club from January 12-16 with $1000 on offer for the best and fairest male and female players.

The WA squad is hoping to improve on a disappointing showing last year.

“It is a team’s event so each player plays two doubles matches and two singles matches, ” Woodward said.

“Last year we probably didn’t get the results we were after but a lot of the same squad went and they are a year older now so we should see some improvement.”

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