The Tennis Victoria Premier League finished in exciting circumstances on Sunday as both the men’s and women’s finals came down to the final rubber.
Kooyong’s women’s team came out on top against a talented MCC team while the men put up a great fight against the red hot favourites from Grace Park.
With doubles played first, both matches were even going into singles after each team won one of the doubles rubbers in straight sets.
Then things started to heat up as singles began, with Destanee Aiava taking on the highly regarded Zoe Hives while Molly Polak took on rising star Jaimee Fourlis. Things were extremely close in the first set of both matches but Aiava was able to win hers in a tiebreak while Polak went down 7/5 after leading early. The first set winner went on to win the match and this again left tings all square with just two rubbers to play.
Annabelle Andrinopoulos then took on Eliza Long while Alana Parnaby took on Sevvy Gallios in the matches that would decide the final. Andrinopoulos got off to a slow start as Long found her range early and the first set quickly slipped away while Parnaby also found herself down a set and things looked grim. Both girls regrouped between sets and things began to turn in their favour as Andrinopoulos got out to an early lead and served for the second set at 5/4 before being broken but she broke straight back and served her way into a third set.
Parnaby raced through the second set to also send her match into a decider as the Kooyong girls looked to have all the momentum. Things could have gone either way in several huge service games in the final set for Parnaby but she found a way to hold while also putting plenty of pressure on the Gallios serve and it payed huge dividends with 4/6 6/1 6/4 victory that kept Kooyong in the match.
With MCC leading on games Andrinopoulos had to win the third set for Kooyong to win on the day and she started the third set where she left off in the second, with some beautifully placed ground strokes to get Long out of position and quickly raced to a 5/2 lead. Andrinopoulos then held her nerve and calmly served out the match to be greeted by some huge cheers from her teammates after pulling off the great escape and a fantastic win for the Club.
The men weren’t quite so lucky despite the best efforts of all involved as Daniel Byrnes won the first set against James Lemke but couldn’t quite get the win in the second set tiebreak and was forced to retire in the third set with injury while the captain, David Bidmeade, kept his side alive with one of his best wins for the Club as he defeated Adam Hubble 7/6 6/3.
Grace Park’s Jarryd Maher then proved to be too strong for Ricky Robertson despite giving everything he had so it came down to the match between Kooyong’s Andrew Coelho and Dane Proppogia and it was Proppogia that drew first blood in a tight first set that ultimately decided the day.
Kooyong then needed to win the final two sets without losing many games which became an impossible task and after some quick calculations the result was called but our men’s team had given their all.
Congratulations to Grace Park on a wonderful season and a thoroughly deserved title and to all the Kooyong players on another fantastic campaign at the top level of tennis in Victoria!
