BETTER Tennis’ fourth and final bronze tournament for the year, the 2018 Frankston Cup, had some exceptional talent on and off the court.
The three day event which kicked off on Saturday 3 November had more than 180 talented juniors competing across the Frankston and Overport Park venues.
There was also the rare sighting of Australian tennis star and former world number one, Lleyton Hewitt, on the sidelines cheering on his son, Cruz, who competed in the under-12s competition. Cruz made the quarter-finals in the 64 player draw.
Retired professional tennis player Peter Luczak also attended the tournament.
Better Tennis coach David Laird said it was great to have the tennis stars on the sidelines as the junior tennis players loved the excitement built up around them.
“The first day [Lleyton] was a little bit undercover and watching his son Cruz play but by the end of the day he was taking pictures with everyone and really interacting with the kids which was great to see,” Laird said.
For the tournament itself, Laird said it just continues to get more popular each time.
“It keeps growing in numbers every time we have one of these competitions,” he said.
“We had to hire 10 courts from Overport Park on the first two days, with Brad [Grose] overseeing everything there, and then we used another 15 courts down at Frankston as well for the entire time.”
“It all went really smooth which was probably helped by Steven [Foot]’s scheduling as everything was planned perfectly to time.
“Sometimes people try to cram in too many matches for a tournament but Steve nailed it and everything ran perfectly.”
The winners from the 2018 Frankston Cup were: under-11 Boys Singles – Nicholas Huang; under-11 Girls Singles – Kylah Schuwalow; under-12 Boys Singles – Josh Ascar; under-12 Boys Doubles – Nick Fraser & Sebastian Tring; under-12 Girls Singles – Kimiko Cooper; under-12 Girls Doubles – Kimiko Cooper & Lily Koleski; under-14 Boys Singles – Joshua Mercuri; under-14 Boys Doubles – Joshua Mercuri & Nicholas Miloi; under-14 Girls Singles – Madi Howell; under-14 Girls Doubles – Isabella Chessler & Jasmine Harding; under-16 Boys Singles – John McDonald; under-16 Boys Doubles – Harrison Flack & Cooper Gibbs; under-16 Girls Singles – Jasmyn Heriot; and under-16 Girls Doubles – Jasmyn Heriot & Phillipa Speldewinde.
