Echuca Tennis Club aces Easter tournament

“ It was pretty successful,” club president Chris Potter said.

“(We were) pretty lucky with the weather, had a couple of good days, which is good.

“Entries were up, which is excellent, it means we're doing the right things, and we got plenty of good feedback from people who say they quite enjoyed the tournament.”

While the tournament attracts plenty of interest from abroad, there was a good selection of local players who scored wins across the grades.

Phil Higgins and Ryan More took out the A men’s doubles, while the duo of Tim and Eli Kingma prevailed in the family doubles event, and local Leanne More partnered with Tom Sheahan for the A mixed victory.

Juniors Xavier and Audrey Stewart picked up wins in the singles and doubles respectively.

This was the 97th annual Easter tournament at Echuca, but the club continues to look for ways to improve future offerings.

A post-tournament survey sought input from players on whether the open singles should continue as a knockout or move to a round-robin, alongside the potential for introducing additional peripheral activities, including hot shots-style sessions for kids.

The open singles have traditionally run as a knockout, but used the round-robin format while the club was down on courts, between the removal of courts to accommodate the Dhungala bridge, and when the new five-court facility was added.

“ It's a good tournament, (and) we want to make sure it's what the people want,” Potter said.

“So (the survey’s) just a case of what the players think that they want or need…

“We're always looking to evolve and make sure that we keep the staple events while still keeping an eye on stuff that we can do better.”