Bad weekend puts Lawn in uphill fight

GEELONG star Adam Laskey admits his team will struggle to play in the Tennis Victoria Premier League finals after dropping the opening two rounds on the weekend.

Geelong Lawn Club fell to Royal South Yarra, 4-2, at home on Saturday, before enduring a 5-1 loss to Kooyong yesterday.

With only three rounds to go — and one of those a scheduled bye — Laskey said it would be a tough ask finishing top three to qualify for finals.

“Our next round is a huge game; we probably should win our next round against Bundoora,” he said.

“I think it’s going to be too tough from here. It depends how all the results go, but we could sneak in — you never know.”

Matthew Hicks performed strongly on Saturday, scoring wins in the singles and in the doubles alongside Laskey, however James Brushfield and James Dougherty failed to collect rubbers.

Meanwhile, in local tennis, Surfcoast has found a rhythm to its Tennis Geelong summer season, stretching its unbeaten run to three with a strong win over Wandana Heights.

Sam Rogers, Adam Kennedy, John Stephenson and Sylvester Cafiso made up the winning four, proving too strong for the visitors, 4.0-35 to 2.0-25.

Despite Wandana Heights missing star James Brushfield on Premier League duties, Rogers said his side’s win was full of merit.

“That’s three matches without defeat, which I word very carefully because we had a draw last week,” the captain said. “But it was good. “I guess they didn’t have their strongest player available, but they were a good side and it was a good win.”

Despite going pointless in its opening two games, Rogers said his side had shown good form this summer.

Cafiso and Brandon Faragher have played the number four position, to which they were still becoming accustomed, Rogers said.

“A couple of guys in our team, Sylvester and Brandon (Faragher), this is their first time at this level,” he said.

“There’s been a bit of getting used to playing with new people.

“Even that first week, when we got hammered by Hamlyn Park, even though we didn’t win a set, we only lost by 10 games. If you’re losing by less than 10 games, that’s usually a fair indication that all your sets were close.

“You can see real progression in five rounds, so I feel we’re moving in the right direction.”

However, Rogers will not be available next week against Barwon Heads in another challenging game for Surfcoast.

In other results, St Mary’s narrowly beat Barwon Heads, Newcomb smashed Ocean Grove and Hamlyn Park overcame Geelong East Uniting.