Courts and Stolles faced off in the Whyalla Tennis Association's senior competition grand final on Saturday, March 14.
The two teams were the standouts for the season, qualifying for the finals well before the end of the minor rounds, with Courts the minor premiers.
Both teams went into the grand final with subtle changes from their last encounter in the first final that saw Courts beat Stolles by the narrowest of margins.
Taking to the courts in blustery conditions, the first round of matches saw Courts produce an early lead, taking two of the first three doubles. The combination of Stringer/Schroeder for Courts continued their winning streak over a hapless McLeod/Krawczyk in a 9-1 result. The other two doubles were marathon matches with Calliss/Rowe accounting for Rhind/Rofe 9-7 in a game lasting for nearly 75 minutes. Gray/Wiblen managed to get the Stolles team on the board, also with a 9-7 win over Courts' pairing of Sichler/Brereton.
The second phase of matches saw three singles wins a piece with wins to Stringer, Brereton and Rowe for Courts and Krawczyk, Gray and Rhind for Stolles. All singles matches were hard fought with players putting in 110 per cent for their respective sides. Courts managed to win the two tiebreaker matches played during the singles. This would prove decisive in the result at the end of the day.
Heading into the final round of matches, the reverse doubles, Courts held the upper hand with a lead of five sets to four and a five game advantage. The first match completed saw a convincing victory to the Courts 'umbilical brothers' (Schroeder/Calliss) over Krawczyk/Rofe. This allowed Courts the piece of mind that the worst result from here would be a 6-all result, and the winner determined by games.
The next match completed saw another route inflicted by a Courts pairing, this time Stringer/Brereton over McLeod/Wiblen in a 9-1 result. This result saw Courts win the day with one match still in play. The Stolles' pair of Gray/Rhind, with the day's result known midway through the match continued to play hard, defeated Sichler/Rowe in a tiebreaker.
Congratulations go to Hog Stringer and Andrew Gray for winning all three of their matches and displaying performances befitting of a grand final.
Courts were victorious seven sets 84 games to Stolles five sets 66 games with Nat Sichler's Courts the celebrated premiers for the 2008/09 season.
A fantastic day of tennis was played by both teams, as has been the case by all teams throughout the season.
The senior presentation night was held directly after the grand final, followed by a social night of live music and novelty events. Team person awards were awarded to individual team members from each team, as nominated by the respective captain. These were awarded to; Courts: Wade Schroeder, Stolles: Rob Wiblen, Newcombes: Tina Wagner, Rosewalls: Alicia Green, Rafters: Nikki Chopin, Hopmans: Allan Smith, Lavers: Dean Lewis.
The prestigious Whyalla Tennis Association Sportsperson Award for 2008/09 was awarded to Dean Lewis. Statistically the most valuable players in the competition, winning the most number of games, were Andrew Calliss 240 games, Chris Gore 233 games and Kerry Azzopardi 219 games.
A reminder to all tennis players that with the completion of the Saturday competition a new social night of tennis is proposed for Friday nights, starting mid April. The Friday night competition will be run identically to the hugely successful Wednesday Night Social Competition, allowing people of all standards to play tennis in a social atmosphere. Further information or to nominate your interest or a team, please call Andrew on 0402 452 862.