Geraldton Tennis Club has busy Easter as more than 100 players hit the courts over the weekend

The greens of the Geraldton Tennis Club were buzzing during the Easter weekend as the Geraldton Tennis Club hosted one of the oldest events in the State — the Easter Open. After COVID disrupted the last few years this year’s event was seen as an opportunity to reset and re-engage the tennis community, with aims to open the tournament up to more local players. The club had hoped for good numbers and attracted more than 100 players across the three-day tournament and 25 events.. Tennis events ranged from junior to open and over 40 categories offering singles, doubles and mixed doubles. In the men’s open event, Joshua Bowen was the victor over Benjamin Joshua Haclin in a dominant tournament, with his closest match being an 8-4 win over Bastien Henrotin in the group stages winning 24 games to seven. Haclin had to work harder for his group wins, taking his first game 8-5 over Brad Crear before securing his finals spot with an 8-6 win over Jarron Kretchsmann. However, Bowen was too strong in the final as the dual hockey and tennis star claimed his inaugural Easter Open. The ladies singles had five players contesting with the top two from the group stage playing off for the final. However, it was clear who the winner was going to be after the opening games as junior star Yelena Kelleher was a class above on the weekend dropping just one game in the group stages. She won her first match 8-0 with the only blemish to her record coming at the hands of Renea Brown in an 8-1 win before winning 16 games straight as she finished the tournament with a 32-1 games record. Women’s cricketer of the year Ruth Vorster secured runner-up after winning her final match over Nell Eastough 8-4 but was no match for Kelleher. While Kretchmann fell short in the singles he found success in the men’s double teaming up with a familiar face as Darren Patten claimed another Geraldton title with a 6-3 win over Haclin and Henrotin proving the decisive match to take the round-robin title. Alana Miles and Michelle Williamson were dominant ladies doubles champions finishing with a 77.4 per cent win record completing a 4-0 sweep of their group. Among the junior divisions Geraldton rising star Tia Bellotti claimed the mixed doubles title with Alexis Holberton, comfortably winning all three of their matches with a 78.3 per cent win record. Holberton also claimed the mixed under-13 title winning four of his five matches with Clifton Bass the runner-up.