Presidents Newsletter – February 2022
I hope everyone had a great Christmas and good holiday.
With all that great weather it made everything possible. There was certainly a lot of tennis played at the club.
The New Year Tournaments went very well and it was a very busy 9 days at the club. The Open was a great success with some fantastic tennis. The men's tennis in particular was of a very high standard and although no Wanaka players were winners they enjoyed the hard tennis. Our junior tournaments had record entries and went very late each day to get all the tennis through. As always our +35 tournaments were well supported and again some great tennis was had. I will send out another email with the winners listed.
A big thank you to all the supporters, organisers, and helpers, particularly in the kitchen. Will Lamb, Sam Beale, Perry Crockett and John Lyness did a great job in running the tournaments. Geoff and I were needed as court referees quite a few times during the junior tournament. Most of the juniors displayed great sportsmanship and knew the rules but a few out of town players did not which was disappointing. We were not needed during the Open or the +35 tournament.
The change to red light Covid has not changed things much and hope everyone is continuing to sign in. Mask wearing is mandatory in the clubrooms and if morning tea is inside we can have no more than 30 people.
There have been a few people who have had difficulty booking a court. Please ring Geoff or me if you have trouble. The IPhone booker app is easy to use but does come up with an error message but if you keep going with the booking it does work. Remember to use the code sent to you in an email and not the one the Booker App sends you. There are times now when our courts are quite busy but also times when there is little demand on the courts. Do remember that you can play until 10pm at night and use the lights. On these warm evenings it can be great to play later.
Wednesday social teams tennis starts this Wednesday. It was oversubscribed this time with some teams missing out, so we do have a large pool of reserves who are keen to play. Dinner arrangements have changed to work within the new Covid framework, but Jan Grant has advised all teams of the new system.
Upcoming Events:
The Wanaka Experience is going ahead on the weekend of the 19, 20 February. This is not run by the Wanaka Tennis Club but played on private courts around town. Many of our Wanaka Tennis Club members will be participating and the clubrooms will be used on Sunday 20th February for lunch, under Covid Red Light regulations.
The Southern Lakes Tennis Association (Wanaka and Queenstown Tennis Clubs) are holding their 2nd Senior Doubles Fundraising Tournament on Saturday 26 th March. This is for teams of two - mens doubles and womens doubles . Entries are limited. It was very popular last year with the lunch being a highlight and of course the tennis ! The entry form is on the website - under Events and click on the tab Senior Doubles. Please note that this is a fundraiser and each team is required to provide an auction prize - e.g. a voucher for something you can provide, wine, gifts etc.
We have another event being played at the tennis club on Sunday March 20th. Hopefully this will still go ahead. The International Lawn Tennis Club of New Zealand are holding the Brian Woolf Trophy in Wanaka. This is a North Island versus South Island competition involving ex ATP players mainly - so a very high standard of tennis. (It was initially planned to be a NZ versus Australia competition but cannot be held due to Covid). We hope to be able to watch some great tennis at the club on this day. More details will be sent out about this.
The annual Senior Quad tournament between Wanaka, Southland , North Otago and South Canterbury is set down for the weekend of the 9,10th April. I will ask for interested people to register closer to the date. Wanaka will have a team of 12 players.
The Club champs are set down this year for the weekend of the 30 April, 1st May with some matches played in the week prior to this. We always plan to have 2 grades but have not had enough entries in the past so please think about entering, Club Champs are for all players.
We are also thinking of having a parent/child tournament with Queenstown involved as well.
Junior News:
Our juniors did well at the ILT Invercargill Junior Tournament with an all Wanaka final in the U12 girls between Laia Mactaggart and Georgia Beale with Laia winning in three sets. Sam Beale (U14) and Finn Mactaggart (U10) also competed and did well against tough Southland competition. This was a good warm up to the Dunedin Quad to be held at the end of February between Otago, Southland, Canterbury and Southern Lakes. Our Wanaka kids listed below will be competing with their Queenstown team mates to form the Southern Lakes Junior Tennis Team. This is a big weekend of tennis where the kids play singles, doubles and mixed doubles. Southern Lakes won the Quad last year so expectations are high. There are 4 girls and 4 boys in each age group and Wanaka was a strong representation. Out Wanaka coaches Perry and Amanda are super proud of them.
U10: Poppy Jackson, Firn Mactaggart, Holly Radford, Caio Crockett
U12: Laia Mactaggart, Georgia Beale, Hugh Davis
U14: Alexi Sheehan, Kaitlyn Tooley, Chloe Rawlence, Alice Porter, Sam Beale, Max Porter
Let us hope for lots of good tennis for the rest of the summer. Member numbers continue to increase and the club is continuing to thrive.
Regards Jeanette Hatten