16 December 2010 | Tennis Queensland

The International Tennis Federation (ITF) has recently announced that South East Queensland (SEQ) will host the 2011 Queensland Claycourt Seniors Championships at the George Alder Tennis Centre in Ipswich.

The prestigious international event is the eleventh Australian ITF sanctioned seniors tournament and the first Queensland ITF sanctioned event to be played on clay courts.

Tennis Seniors Queensland president, Phil Waight, is ecstatic about the announcement and is confident that the event will promote tennis in the region.

“It’s great to have another ITF sanctioned event in Queensland,” Mr Waight said.

“It’s fantastic to have one in Brisbane/Ipswich- the other ITF events are on the Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast, so it’s great to have players in the Brisbane area.”

This is the third ITF seniors event to be held in Queensland, and will draw both domestic and international players to SEQ, where they will battle to earn points towards their world rankings.

Queensland’s Neville Halligan, who is the current world No.1 in the 85+Seniors division, will certainly be making an appearance.

“It should attract plenty of international players, and I look forward to playing in it,” the 88 year old champ enthused.

The tournament is the second ITF sanctioned event that will be played on clay in Australia, and Halligan is particularly keen to see another tournament played on clay surface.

“We really need to be playing on clay, and it certainly makes a good change from the artificial grass.” Mr Halligan has said.

The event will be held 5-8 August 2011 at the George Alder Tennis Centre, Ipswich, and will run in conjunction with Seniors Week, which is a Queensland Government initiative.