The usual two days mid-week was strange as the ladies called off tennis during the morning with it being too hot to play. When we arrived for play on Wednesday we were all attired in tracksuits owing to the cold change, but it did not affect Denise as she was with winner for the morning.

Friday also saw the senior men on the courts with a warmer morning.

Then on Saturday and Sunday we saw 96 10-and-under junior players for the Dorn Fogarty Cup for girls and the John Whittaker Cup for boys.

The cups are played for each year for the State Teams Championships with six teams in Pool A and six teams in pool B for both boys and girls.

The teams are put together after a lot of work in picking the best in their areas with teams coming from ACT; five teams from the Metropolitan area with team names as Smashers, Backhands, Dropshots and Aces, each group playing with shots up to the name of their team.

The winners of the John Whittaker Cup were the Metropolitan Dropshots (Saen Wang, Bhavi Chauhan, Jesse Gothelf and Alex Kazja) who played South East (Cameron Poulos, Jesse Ingleton, Maka Ofati and Dylan White) in the finals.

The Dorn Fogarty Cup for girls was also won by the Metropolitan Dropshots (Chanella Saofaileta, Alana Subasic, Claudia Coombes and Farah Zulfiqar) playing the Metropolitan Aces (Sharon Britto, Eva Lozitskaya, Sarah Mazaraki and Mia Brankovic) in the finals.

There was great tennis played and enjoyed by all watching. The canteen workers were kept busy for the two days catering for all tastes and diets, a special thanks to all workers.

We had Beryl with her bacon and egg sandwiches, I always thought you had bacon and eggs for breakfast, but on Saturday she was still serving breakfast at five in the afternoon. The girls doing the sales a special thank you, they kept us very busy in the kitchen filling the orders.

Janice does a great job with the ordering as she seems to know the right amounts to purchase, but on Sunday afternoon about 3pm we had a quick change in diet as all sandwiches and sausages were sold, so Janice set up the chip machine and went into action selling hot chips.

We also had Brad and Nicky on the barbecue doing a great job, doing sausage sandwiches, so we certainly kept all visitors well looked after and nourished.

It was amazing the amount of ice used in water to keep players cool, and the locally-made ice cups in three flavours, but we did have two very hot days finishing up both afternoons with storms and rain to cool the afternoon down.

We have been told other clubs do not have the catering facilities that we have, we find the same with the senior tournaments.

Speaking of them, we have four players from Cessnock going to Dubbo to compete this coming weekend in their seniors tournament.

I hope players are ready for the commencement of the night tennis competition that gets underway this Friday night, and have all contacted Nancy with your name and partner’s name.

If you are looking for a partner, Nancy will endeavour to find one for you. Ring her on 4990 5101 or 0402 320 141 by Wednesday so she can have the night organised so play can commence on time.

Cessnock Tennis Club has welcomed some new and improved features thanks to a grant from the NSW Government.

The club received $13,000 from the Community Building Partnerships program, which was used to install a new power pole and four new control switches.

The grant was received in December 2014, and the club had 18 months to spend the funds.