LAWN TENNIS LAWN TENNIS
Swan Hill
serves it up
Country Week is one of the biggest gatherings on the Tennis Victoria calendar, with Swan Hill Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club hosting more than 1200 players in February across a total of 93 Santa Ana couchgrass courts
Country Week has been an institution for more than 30 years, with Swan Hill hosting it 16 times
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very February, Tennis Victoria hosts one of the biggest events on the Australian tennis calendar – Country Week. Each year between 1200 and 1500 players of differing skill levels from across the state converge on the host towns for a week of action on and off the grass courts. The event has travelled around regional Victoria for more than 30 years and from 12-16 February 2018, Swan Hill Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club (SHLT&CC) hosted the event for the 16th time. The Swan Hill Lawn Tennis Club (as it was then called) was originally formed in 1910 and from humble beginnings of just a single asphalt court has grown to boast 51 permanent Santa Ana couchgrass courts and four hard courts, making it one of the largest lawn tennis facilities in the world. In order to host Country Week, the club, with the assistance of Swan Hill Rural City Council, converts the adjacent soccer club fields into 42 temporary grass courts. All up, the 93 courts this year entertained 89 men’s and 119 women’s teams.
AUSTRALIAN TURFGRASS MANAGEMENT 20.2
I have been the club’s curator for a total of 12 years over two separate stints, the most recent starting in September 2013. For those not familiar with Swan Hill, it is located on the Murray River about four hours north west of Melbourne. I grew up in the small township of Lake Boga which is about 15 minutes south of Swan Hill. My family had a grass court in the backyard and I was attracted to the lush green turf in our semi-arid climate and the game of tennis from an early age. My entry into greenkeeping certainly wasn’t conventional. In the early 1990s I completed a Bachelor of Computing at Melbourne’s Monash University and subsequently worked in the IT industry. City life, however, wasn’t for me and I headed back home and was fortunate enough to get a part-time job during the summer months at SHLT&CC where I learnt the basics of turf maintenance. From that, I was offered the sole fulltime role which I duly took up and did so for about eight years until 2005.