TENNIS will hit off as scheduled this Saturday with the opening round of the Sunraysia District Tennis Association (SDTA).
Tennis officials will meet tonight to discuss scheduling, but SDTA president Bill Madafferi confirmed the season would start as planned, despite the border closure between Victoria and NSW.
“We had to tick a few things off, which is why we pushed the planned start date back a week,” Madafferi said.
“ The things each club had to do to meet all the different protocols have been done and submitted to the appropriate organisations so, at this stage, I can’t see any reason why we won’t be starting Saturday as planned.”
Madafferi said he was still uncertain on the number of teams Alcheringa, who are based in Gol Gol on the New South Wales side of the border, would be entering this year.
The SDTA will play a 10-round home-and-away season with no finals. The premiership club in each grade will be the team who finishes on top of the ladder.
With the announcement the NSW border was closing to Victoria last week and a rise in the number of coronavirus cases there had been some doubt on whether community sport would also be affected.
But, despite Melbourne going into lockdown, regional areas like Sunraysia have not had restrictions tightened.
Madafferi said it was exciting to finally be able to start the season after so much uncertainty in recent months.
“I think everyone is just happy that this Saturday they can get out and have a game of tennis,” he said.
“It has taken a fair bit of work by all the clubs to make sure they have all their processes in place, but they have done a great job and now we are all just excited we are finally going to get a start.”
Junior tennis is also scheduled to start on Saturday.
