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"Inaugural Year For Tennis Concludes"Edison Mission Energy Gippsland Sports Academy held its graduation session for the Tennis Victoria Tennis Squad on the weekend, concluding the first year of the sports existence under the academy’s umbrella. By Gippsland Sports Academy - 21st December 2004 - Back to News All ten of the athletes were awarded with graduation certificates and congratulated on their efforts throughout the 12 month program that included four tournaments at various venues around Victoria. Program Manager, Barry Stokes, said it was a very successful and well organised program considering this was the first one of its kind in country Victoria. "All of the athletes have benefited greatly and improved on and off the court…with their land training, nutrition and mental approaches to their tennis." Barry also expressed his appreciation to program sponsor Tennis Victoria, who were a big influence on the program financially and structurally in 2004 helping out with the talent identification process and the delivery of the program via Talent Development Manager Elizabeth Peers.
The program was the first of its kind in the regional academy system, with the program broken into four blocks with a different coach assigned to each. The first term block head coach was Mark Stevens of the Maffra Tennis Club, training and competitions were based around the grass court surface.
All athletes were taken through two training sessions before travelling to Geelong for the national points grass court tournament. The second block of the program saw Graham Charlton as head coach and the surface of choice was en-tous-cas. The touch clay-type surface was used for training at the Tynong Nth and Sale facilities, while the team travelled to North Ringwood for the Nth Ringwood Junior Championships with positive results.
The third block was supervised by Morwell local Andrew Peavey, with the tournament being held in Bairnsdale for the Classic Clay tournament. Two athletes joined the squad, David Donchi and Jo Commerford, with immediate impact. David winning his age group in the singles at Bairnsdale Classic Clay, giving him back to back victories after he won the under 14 title at the Federation Health Junior Tournament in Traralgon the week before.
The final block of the 2004 tennis program saw Jason Burns at the helm. The tournament was the Shepparton Grass Court Championships. Jason put the talented young athletes through their paces at training in Drouin and Sale before making the trip to Shepparton for the competition. It was a great climax for the program with academy athletes in finals everywhere. Chris Thomas took home the under 14 singles title over David Donchi, also Chris won the Under 14 doubles title with Jo Commerford as they beat fellow academy athletes David Donchi and Jarryd Blair.
In the women’s, Jessie Johnstone finished runner up in the under 14 singles but success, pairing up with academy team mate Kate Marshall to take out the 14 doubles title. Jessie Johnstone then went on to claim her second title of the tournament in the Under 16 girls singles, defeating her doubles partner Kate Marshall.
All in all the tennis program was a giant step forward for tennis in Gippsland, giving the talented young tennis players of this region the opportunity to progress through to bigger and higher levels without travelling to Melbourne for assistance. Trials for nominated athletes were held at the Traralgon Tennis Association on the 19th of December under the supervision of Elizabeth Peers, Tennis Victoria’s Talent Development Manager, assisting her was talent identification coach Chris Kashel, also from Tennis Victoria. The squad is to be announced in January.
The program will then commence in the New Year with the first session most likely to be held in Melbourne with Chris Kashel and entry into the KIA Australian Tennis Open 2005.
Source: http://gippsland.com/ Published by: news@gippsland.com
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