23 January 2014 | Tennis West

 Brenton Bacon and Andrew Roberts

The ATL opened in November, headlined by Pat Rafter who was cheered on by 1500 people at the Kawana Tennis Club in Queensland. In WA, the women’s teams of the Midland Mad Dogs, City Beach Slammers, Wembley Wizards and Cottesloe Cubs and the Men’s contingents of the Wembley Wizards, Peppermint Grove Magpies, Sorrento Cheetahs and Higgins Magic played an exciting fast format round robin over 3 weeks with the Wizards and Mad Dogs triumphant in the final and earning the right to represent WA at the Asia-Pacific play-offs at the Australian Open. They and other state conference winners were joined by teams from Japan, Korea, New Zealand and Pacific Oceania on the courts alongside the new Margaret Court arena to battle for tennis supremacy in the Asia-Pacific.

Zach Itzstein

On day 1 everyone was ready for action in a packed day of tennis. The Wizards faced number 4 seeds, the Kauris from New Zealand with nothing to lose. Andrew Roberts lost in a tie-break in the third set to Artem Sitak, arguably New Zealand’s top player. His doubles match with Brenton Bacon was also decided 10-8 in the tie-break, but despite a couple of close matches, the Kauri’s proved too strong for the Wizards. Japan Phoenix were the clear favourites of the playoff with Bobby Reynolds and Danai Udomchoke leading their team to a five rubbers to love victory over the Trinity Titans.

The young gun WA team Midland Mad Dogs took on the number 2 seeds Stanmore Wyverns, and the team were thrilled with  Teiwa Casey ’s victory over Julia Moriarty. In the doubles rubber, Teiwa and Amelia Jones faced Monique Adamzcak and Nicole Kriz, after Monique’s fabulous doubles match with Olivia Rogowska on Hisense arena the night before against the number one pairing of Errani and Vinci from Italy.  Despite Canberra Velocity recruiting South Africa’s number 1 player Chanelle Scheepers, who also played in the 2013 Hopman Cup in Perth, the Korean girls proved too consistent for them.

The following day The Wizards and the Trinity Titans played for 5^th place. All the singles were bravely fought with Jack Lyttle losing a tie-break to Tu Li. Thereafter the team used their doubles magic to win both doubles, however the 4-2 loss meant equal 7^th place for the WA team.

Midland Mad Dogs and the Shaw Park Sharks also battled for fifth place. Teiwa again won her singles against Chelsea Te Tai and Chelsea Church lost in three sets, resulting in equal 7^th place for the young girls from WA. Notwithstanding the loss, the smiles all around were indicative of a worthwhile experience and fun time in their tennis careers.

The next day in the final, The Royals were crowned 2014 ATL champions, beginning with a confident start from their wildcard Olivia Rogowska who won her match over Magda Linette from Poland and wildcard for the Freighters. Storm Sanders continued her good form beating Viktorija Rajicic and Azra Hadzic’s win over Karolina Wlodarcsak gave the Royals a 3-1 lead.  After Patterson/Harris were defeated, the pressure was on Sanders and Rogowska who shared the first two sets with the Freighters  but then found themselves 1-5 down in the tie-break. They edged forward to reclaim the score 8-3 but the Freighters fought back to even the score at 9 all. The crowd were up and cheering and the Royals brought out their best serves to take the next two points and the championship. This year was the turn of the Victorian girls after the Liston Seagulls won the Men’s last year.

On the adjacent courts, the Kauri’s faced the Brisbane Chargers. This time Artem Sitak needed three sets to beat Michael Look, while Robert Smeets came back to beat Marcus Daniell. Wins from Michael Venus and Gavin Van Peperzeel evened the rubbers to two all. Then the Kauri doubles teams won their first sets 4-3 and despite the chargers trying hard for a fight-back, they secured the $20,00 prizemoney, by taking the last two sets, to the delight of the New Zealand fans.

A number of familiar faces were spotted in the stands supporting the WA teams, and the ladies from Wembley in their “Captains” hats were a devoted and vocal fan club for the Wizards. They also found time to visit the laneways of Melbourne for coffee’s and shopping expeditions, which were a great success judging by the size of the luggage they brought home to Perth. Tennis West would like to thank all the players, cub members, sponsors and local councils for their support of the ATL conference in WA which is now cemented as the valuable pinnacle of team league tennis in Western Australia.