Wangaratta Lawn Tennis, Croquet and Pickleball Club president Sam Allen said the 100th Australia Day tennis tournament was nothing short of a resounding success.<\/p>\n
From Saturday 24 to Monday 26 January, the courts and surrounding spaces around Merriwa Park were packed as players came from near and far to celebrate the 100 years of the beloved Dal Zotto Wines Australia Day Tournament 2026.<\/p>\n
Across the three days, more than 450 participants took to the pristine courts and although the mercury was soaring, the fun, enjoyment and sense of community both on the courts and off them was palpable.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it went as well as possible, we still managed to do well out of it as a club, so we couldn\u2019t be happier at this stage,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a good turnout, we had a lot of our regulars there and we had 60 extra entries from last year, so people certainly turned out for it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was as good as it could have been, given the heat on day two and day three.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think our planning around match times and having a little break in the afternoon worked well.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t get too many complaints, I think people were pretty happy to sit out that hot period and come back in the evening and recommence matches.\u201d<\/p>\n
The club\u2019s \u2018Wear It White\u2019 day on Sunday went down exceptionally well, with attendees donning white as a nod to the history of the event, when all-white clothing was mandated.<\/p>\n
Also reflecting the history of the club was a display inside the clubrooms, featuring photos, articles and documents from across the tournament\u2019s 100-year journey.<\/p>\n
“There was a handful of people who spent a lot of time collecting some historic information and images and results, all sorts of things about our club over the 100 years,\u201d Allen said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel we did a good job celebrating the 100 years of the tournament, and I think people appreciated the effort we went to.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was certainly on display for everyone to see and certainly saw a lot of people having some great conversations over in that area about the memories they had and shared with someone, or a match they won in a certain year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we really achieved what we wanted to achieve in that area.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the dust is still settling from the weekend\u2019s event, plans are already in place to make the 2027 tournament bigger and better.<\/p>\n
Allen confirmed plans to extend the tournament to a four-day spectacle, given the public holiday for Australia Day 2027 falls on a Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll get together sometime over the next couple of weeks as a committee, just reassess, see what we thought [of the tournament],\u201d Allen said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve decided on a four-day tournament for next year, given the public holiday will be on the Tuesday, so we\u2019re excited to see how we work out that.<\/p>\n
\u201cDal Zotto\u2019s have agreed to come back on board as our naming rights sponsor, that\u2019s outstanding.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re already off to a reasonable start, we think \u2013 we\u2019ve just got 12 months to get organised and back into it again, but it\u2019s good to have those little things ticked off.\u201d<\/p>\n
Allen and the Wangaratta Lawn Tennis, Croquet and Pickleball Club wished to thank all sponsors, in particular Dal Zotto Wines, Alfonso Building Solutions and the Rural City of Wangaratta, and every volunteer, attendee, participant and community member for their support.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe really appreciate their support \u2013 without their support, we can\u2019t put on the event we like to and the event we were able to over the weekend,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wangaratta Lawn Tennis, Croquet and Pickleball Club president Sam Allen said the 100th Australia Day tennis tournament was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":441402,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-441401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/441402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}