IF Mildura is serious about getting big tennis tournaments to the city it needs to have 10-12 courts with a hard surface, Mildura tennis coach and former ATP player Bill Madafferi says.
Mildura Lawn Tennis Club’s 32 grass courts are envied around Australia as some of the best, but with tournaments on grass limited, Mildura would be at a disadvantage – particularly if Tennis Australia’s (TA) plan to move all its summer events to Victoria in the lead-up to the 2021 Australian Open goes ahead.
“The hard courts you move the same, they would be decent lead-up tournaments to obviously the Aussie Open, so we could host those lead-up tournaments if we had 10-11,” Madafferi said.
“I don’t want to take out all the grass courts at Mildura Lawn, but 32 is probably too many … and we would be a lot more attractive for organisers and even Tennis Australia if we had that 12 hard-court set-up.”
None of TA’s events slated to be moved to Victoria are played on grass as the Open is played on plexicushion.
“We are going to miss out purely and simply because we don’t have the courts,” Madafferi said.
Madafferi said hard courts in Mildura would open the city up to hosting tournaments year-round as well, capitalising on the city’s weather compared to other regional centres such as Bendigo and Traralgon.
“I think going forward we are in a perfect position because we have the best weather in winter,” he said.
“If we had 10-12 hard courts we could vie for the tournaments in winter time, because obviously our winter we are drier up here.
“We would be very attractive, but to say that the club has got to want to go in that direction.”
Madafferi said the decision would need to be made by the Mildura Lawn Tennis Club first before a business case could be put to the council and Tennis Australia.
Club president Reg Arney said the club had investigated the issue in the past but cost became the issue, with a Tennis Victoria feasibility in 2012 study pricing 12 courts at $2.75 million.
Arney said the club could fit six hard courts in without losing any grass courts under the original plans.
“We’d have to lose about eight grass courts to get our 12,” he said.
“Which we could do, we’d still have 24 grass courts …. that was ok but we just don’t have the funds ourselves.”
Arney said if the funding was there then the club would look at proceeding, even to help boost its winter competition locally.
“We’d go ahead with it, especially the six straight up, but 12 would be good because Winter competition seems to have more numbers than summer competition,” he said.
“It’s structured teams, we started structured teams competition at the top of the men’s this year (for Summer) … Bill instigated it, that’s brought nearly 10 or more players who don’t normally play.”
Madafferi said overall the addition of hard courts would be a big win for Mildura as a whole.
“The big picture is if we get those big tournaments then really Mildura will be laughing, the community benefits and not just the tennis club,” he said.
Meanwhile, the 2021 Australian Open still remains in limbo with international players unlikely to be allowed into Victoria next month.
