PLAYERS SERVE UP TOP-NOTCH TENNIS
THE week of 29th July to 5th August saw many of Ireland’s top young tennis players come to Shankill for the 27th Shankill Junior Open Tennis Tournament.
Shankill Junior Open was promoted to a Grade 1 tournament in 2012 and as such is one of the key events in the junior tennis calendar, attracting a large and quality entry from all corners of the island north and south.
Many young players are attracted to play in the Shankill Junior Open as it is the ideal preparatory tournament before the annual William Fry Junior Tennis Championships held annually in Fitzwilliam.
On Finals Day this year the winners of the girls under 18 singles and the boys under 18 singles both came from Northern Ireland with Amy Rothwell and Cian McDonnell emerging victorious.
However, there was local interest with representation from Shankill in the under 18s mixed doubles final, where Shane Dolan O’Dalaigh and Ellie Murphy were attempting to defend their title of 2016.
In a close and very high quality match, they were unfortunately beaten into the runner-up spot this year by the strong pairing of Daniel Barisnikovs and Anna Jones.
Prizes on the day were presented by the Cathaoirleach of Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council, Councillor Tom Murphy.
Finals Day also featured a demonstration from Tennis Ireland’s Enjoy Tennis programme, which facilitates players with intellectual disability to play tennis, and a demonstration of tennis from visually impaired players -both programmes are successfully up and running in Shankill.
The running of this tournament could not happen without the huge voluntary effort and commitment of members, parents and supporters of Shankill Tennis Club, and the club sincerely appreciates the efforts of all those who gave so generously of their time to keep hungry players fed during the week, supervise matches and assist in numerous other ways.
Shankill Tennis Club is also extremely grateful to tournament sponsors Four Star Pizza in Bray and Martyn Evans Sports who have generously supported the tournament for many years and of course particular thanks are due to all local advertisers who again demonstrated their encouragement of junior tennis by kindly supporting the tournament programme.