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With Friday night’s final round of the Asia Pacific Tennis League set to decide Sunday’s finalists, the Kooyong men are right in the thick of the action as they try to defend their South East Conference title.

A pair of wins last weekend has them sitting in second position, ten points clear of the Tasmanian Devils who are in their first season in the competition.

With the big showdown with the league leaders, the Royal South Yarras, this Friday at Doveton Tennis Club at 6.30pm, the team needs just one win from their six matches to lock in a top two finish.

Friday night’s match with Waverley saw Andrew Whittington return from injury and he got the team off to a great start with a 4/3 3/4 4/1 win over Aaron Leeder-Chard while Daniel Byrnes continued his dominance in this format with a straight sets win over Daniel Feretti.

Marc Polmans also came out firing to put Kooyong up three rubbers to love with a 4/0 4/3 win over Sam Dowler while the captain, David Bidmeade, was unlucky again with a 3/4 4/3 4/3 loss to Aaron Addison.

The Kooyong boys then cleaned up the doubles to win the match 5 rubbers to 1.

The side then travelled to Launceston for the first ever Tasmanian super round and needed a win against the Tennis World Taipans to keep their finals hopes alive and they achieved that goal by just three games.

Andrew Whittington and David Bidmeade were first on court and both got off to a flying start by winning the first set but their opponents, Blake Mott and Stephen Hoh respectively, both fought back to level the match at a set apiece.

Unfortunately Whittington went down in three sets but Bidmeade evened the ledger with a dominant third set win.

Daniel Byrnes and Ricky Robertson then went onto court and it was again two contrasting matches for the Kooyong side with Jarryd Maher dominating Byrnes while Robertson found a way to get past Tennis World’s Simon Rae in straight sets to leave the match evenly poised going into doubles.

Whittington and Byrnes paired up to win a crucial doubles match 4/1 4/2 while Bidmeade and Robertson were able to keep things close, despite going down 4/3 4/3, to ensure the team got the all important win.

Everything is set for a great finish this weekend and members are invited to come and watch the team on Friday night at Doveton before hopefully facing Royal South Yarra in the final at the National Tennis Centre on Sunday at 1pm.