Tennis boss declares season a good one

Wairarapa Tennis Association chief executive officer Cilla Paulik is delighted with the progess made by the sport in the 2007-08 season.
An obvious highlight was the effort of the senior representative squad in winning the Jacob Creek Trophy quinrangular tournament and the Adidas Cup for being the best-performed team in the Central Districts region,
Paulik said the success of the senior side was a tribute to the dedication of selector Steve Hurley, who has now completed nine seasons in that position,and had proved an excellent role model for the association's junior programme, the numbers in which had increased to the point where over 90 had regularly participated in Friday afternoon inter-club play.
And there were also 40 youngsters receiving instruction from locally-based professional coach Marco de Groot, most of whom had played in the annual Trevs junior closed championships which had attracted a record 55 entries.
Paulik said the Wairarapa junior teams might not have won too many of their matches but that individually there had been a number of excellent results against New Zealand-ranked players.Those who repped for Wairarapa at that level were.-Boys: Ryan Candy, Guy Lewis, Ben Wilkinson,Henry Phelps, Bradley Annear, Henry Gaskin,Storm McKenna, Johnathon Tatham, Mitchell Blackwood, Fraser Dymond,
Jaimie McMaster, Edward Phelps, Jordon Bolt, William Annear, Angus Preston, Sean Hourigan, Oliver Donald, Chris Adgo Monte Warren, Kota Mjaeno, Kieran Charnock, Jared Holt, Jaimie Osborne.Girls:Jessica Perry, TeAniwa Hurihanganui, Rebecca Perry,Sade Atkinson, Brooke Osborne, Kristy Renall, Brooke Candy, Charlotte Mossman, Jessica Atmore, Zoe Schofield, Anlo van Deventer, Emma Phelps, Dushka Warren.
The closeness of the senior inter-club competitions which saw only one point determining the finalists in both regional one and two ensured interest was maintained there and Paulik said the midweek doubles had again proved popular with eight teams playing on Wednesday nights.
Also the new format for the Saturday doubles had been a hit and up to 50 boys and 30 girls had competed in the regional three competitions run by Rathkeale College and St Matthew's Collegiate.
Paulik revealed a new programme had been introduced by Tennis New Zealand called "Grasshoppers" with the hope being it would be taken up by primary schools in the primary region.It involves children being taught basic tennis skills with the idea of them continuing their participation through club junior programmes.
The success being achieved on the highly-competitive ATP circuit by Wairarapa's own Marcus Daniell is seen as another big plus for the sport here by Paulik, who said his results were helping boost the profile of Wairarapa tennis on the national front.