FOUR 10-year-old tennis players from Swan Hill — Zac Warne, Noah Sherlock, Pippa Lewis, Greta Sheldrick — represented the Northern Mallee in the Wayne Arthurs Cup at Kooyong last weekend.
To be eligible for this tournament, players had to be 10 or under as of December 31 this year.
They competed against 15 other areas including Barwon, Bayside-Moorabbin, Berwick and District, Central Gippsland, Central Highlands, Eastern Region, Goulburn, Loddon Campaspe, Mornington Peninsula, North East Victoria, North Eastern, Northern Suburban, Peninsula and South West.
The teams were divided into four groups of four. With teams consisting of two girls and two boys, each player played a singles and mixed match.
Northern Mallee was grouped with Barwon, North Suburban and Peninsula.
First up they played Peninsula — Warne and Sheldrick went down 3-6 while Sherlock and Lewis went down 4-6.
In the singles, Warne won 6-0 and Sherlock 6-2, while Sheldrick and Lewis lost to love.
Next was North Suburban where all players lost 6-0 to their opponents — except Lewis who won two games against a higher ranked player.
The final match was against Barwon — Warne and Sheldrick lost 6-3, while Sherlock and Lewis went down 6-0.
In the singles matches, Warne and Sherlock both scored four games while Sheldrick scored two and Lewis three.
At the end of Saturday, Northern Mallee was placed fourth in its group after playing some of the top ranked 10-year-old Victorians.
They returned on Sunday morning for semi-finals and played North East, where they won all their matches.
They then played Loddon Campaspe, where they were defeated four sets to two, with both Warne and Sherlock winning their matches.
Sherlock won his match in a tiebreaker and was placed 14th at the end of the tournament.
