MIA Open Tennis Championship Centenary

The 100th MIA Open Tennis Championships were held at Jack Shannon Tennis Courts over the long weekend. Nostalgic Centenary celebrations and a reunion dinner on Friday complemented the annual program events.

These events include the silver AMT and JT games, with $6,000 in prize money available for winners in the open singles and doubles.

Like many organisations, Griffith Tennis Club were unable to hold a large community event last year, due to COVID restrictions. 2020 was the 100th championship year, and the significance wasn’t going to be lost this year.

Tennis Club Committee member Lorraine Matthews said 196 people entered the championship, which attracted players from Canberra, Sydney, Albury, Wagga and Temora as well as local representation. Victorian players from Melbourne and Bendigo pulled out due to COVID lockdown conditions.

“We had what we called our Centenary event. It was a combination of things. The combination of ages had to be over 100 to go in it. Then we decided to play with wooden tennis rackets and tennis clothing from the last century,” Mrs Matthews said.

“There were these young 12 to 16 year olds who are really focused on their tennis looking sideways to these people playing with wooden rackets.”

The two local winners were Jason Clifford in the over 45 men’s singles. He also teamed up with Blake Rayworth to take out the B-grade doubles.

Tennis coach Danny Dossiter was unable to defend his championship title in his 10th year, losing in the tie breaker.

“Because Griffith has been the largest centre for the last 50 or 80 years, we’ve attracted more players and have more people from the region involved. Every town with a tennis court used to have a tournament,” Mrs Matthews said.

Parent/child events were introduced to the championships in the 1990s. Mrs Matthews said when the mother/daughter and father/son events started, they were immediately popular.

“It makes it more family orientated,” she said.

Other community involvement that continued this year is a traditional Italian pasta night and family activities over the weekend for all ages to be entertained.

International stars have graced the Griffith courts from the 1930s onwards, including Nick Kyrgios who has played twice.

“You have 300 spectators coming to watch these international standard players play some matches. Then there were matches with them facing up against the strongest local players,” she said.

History records throughout the decades of the club’s history are on the club’s website, griffithtennisclub.com.au.

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• Tennis