24 January 2013 | Tennis Victoria

The Liston Seagulls have tonight won the inaugural Asia-Pacific Tennis League (ATL) Championship.  After coming through the ATL Victorian conference undefeated they continued their hot streak taking that winning edge into the final tonight where they met ATP Sydney representing New South Wales.

In a hard fought out battle the Seagulls managed to overcome the might of ATP Sydney winning 4 rubbers to 2.

Sam Groth led the way managing to dispose of Adam Feeney in straight sets as did James Lemke in his singles rubber.  Matt Reid and Rubin Statham had tougher matches taking their contests to three sets.  Matt Reid managed to overcome three broken racquet strings leaving him to borrow team coach Dane Nebel’s racquet to finish off his match.  In a hard fought out contest Reid was the winner over Greg Jones.  Rubin Statham’s match went to sudden death in the third set with ATP Sydney coming out on top.

With the score sitting at 3 rubbers to 1, it was left to the doubles to decide the championship with the Seagulls only needing to win one set to be named the ATL Champions.  The pairing of Matt Reid and Sam Groth managed to win their first set 4-1 quickly followed by Statham and Lemke winning their first set to wrap up the championship.

Speaking of the win, Liston Tennis Club President Gary Clark said “To win an ATL after 5 years of hard work is a sensational outcome and all involved in this journey should be very proud.

After being in the wilderness for 40 years it is great to see a team from the Western Suburbs make state grade tennis and go on to win an ATL Championship.”

In earlier matches the Kooyong Classics Ladies team finished fifth in the ATL playoffs winning the battle for fifth place to the ACT’s Canberra Velocity.  The Kooyong Classic’s Men’s team unfortunately lost their match to the Giants from Western Australia to finish in sixth position.

Tennis Victoria congratulates all teams for making it through the playoffs particularly the Liston Seagulls for winning the inaugural Men’s ATL Championship.

You can find more photos from the ATL Playoffs and finals on our Facebook page.