There was blood, sweat and tears of joy for two of our tennis teams last weekend as they won through to the Autumn Badge final of their respective divisions, which will be played on Saturday.
Following on from the success of our Premier League side (who finished runner’s up), it means half of the club’s 2017 Badge teams have reached their decider this season.
This is a wonderful achievement and indicative of the depth, competitiveness and dedication among our representative tennis members. You all deserve a big congratulations!
It will be left to Strathfield 3 and Strathfield 6 to fly the SSC flag on Saturday, with our Strathfield 5 outfit the unlucky team to miss out (by the slimmest of margins!) from the semi-finals.
Here’s how all three fared when they had home court advantage against Manly last weekend.
Strathfield 3 (Men’s 2.2)
Not much separated SSC 3 from Manly Men 4 all season so it was no surprise that their semi-final went down to the wire.
After Andrew King and Charles Hempel lost the opening rubber Alex Chen and Sudeep Gurung squared the ledger to leave the tie delicately poised at the half way mark.
The combination of Alex and Sudeep lost in their reverse match-up leaving the team of the brink of defeat but Andrew and Charles were able to claim a comprehensive win in the final rubber to grab the win.
The finals result saw both teams locked on four sets with SSC claiming an overall three game margin to win through to the final, where they’ll play away to minor-premiers Killara 5.
Strathfield 5 (Men’s 2.5)
It was a similarly tight affair for Strathfield 5, who also finished locked on 4-sets apiece against Manly Men 6 but were edged out by just two games!
The combination of Robert Moh, Chilip Foo, David Hansen and Sanghyuk Kim played brilliantly as they have done all season but unfortunately just miss out on the chance to claim more silverware.
They’re to be congratulated for finishing the season on top of the standings in what proved to be a very tight division and no doubt they’ll bounce back next season.
Strathfield 6 (Men’s 3.1)
After overcoming some early adversity – with David Rutherford injuring his hand in the warm-up and Corey King almost missing the start time – SSC 6 romped to victory against Manly Men 8.
The combination of Graham and Corey King once again proved to be formidable and they were well backed up by David and Adrian Izurieta to claim a five-sets to one win.
The same combinations will contest the final against minor-premiers WSLTA 2 at Pratten Park on Saturday, where they’ll be hopeful of springing an upset.
It means there’ll be no SSC Badge team at home this Saturday but we’ll still be cheering loudly from the clubhouse and look forward to celebrating another SSC title.
Once again, we’d like to congratulate all players that have been involved this season and a special good luck to Strathfield 3 & 5 in their grand finals!