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Tennis Ireland Centenary Celebrations

23 Jul Tennis Ireland Centenary Celebrations

Posted at 00:00h in News by

Tennis Ireland is celebrating its 100th birthday in 2008 and will be holding a number of special events over the coming months to mark this momentous milestone.

August 23rd
Saturday August 23rd is the date when Tennis Ireland will officially launch the National Tennis Academy at the National Tennis Centre in Albert College Park. The Centre has this year grown from 4 indoor acrylic courts to a total of 10 courts with hard court, clay court and changing and shower facilities also added. The launch event, incorporating a drinks reception together with some exhibition tennis involving Academy players will take place at 6.30pm.
The celebrations will then move from courtside in Albert College Park to the Helix Theatre, Dublin City University for the Tennis Ireland Gala Centenary Dinner beginning at 8pm.

Early November
During the early days of November Tennis Ireland will launch a new book “Tennis In My Life” celebrating Tennis Irelands role in Irish sport, and comprised of interviews with a number of well known individuals outlining the part tennis has played in their lives. The 20 contributors include Ronnie Delaney, Gary Cooke (Apres Match), Pianist Hugh Tinney and Sean Sorensen.
An extract from well known Vets player June Ann Byrne’s essay is presented here  below as a taster for the book launch in November
I was a very good swimmer as a young girl; I swam for Munster. My thirteenth birthday was coming up and I think my father was terrified that I’d drown so he gave me a tennis racquet as a gift. My brother was two years older than me and later went on to become a Davis Cup player. He remarked that I couldn’t hit the house if I was beside it because I was a girl, and I thought, “hump!”
 
The first tournament I played was a handicap in Rushbrooke in the month of June, around my fourteenth birthday. I think I was given about a plus 50, but I won it and I might as well have won the championship of the world. I had great ball sense because I used to return to Cork every summer as a child once we’d moved to Dublin and would spend my days playing hurling with a group of boys my own age. If you can run down a field with a hurl and sliotar, you should have no trouble with a racquet and tennis ball.
 
My brother and I were the first brother and sister to play both junior and senior Wimbledon. I never had any hang ups, I just loved to play. I won my first senior in Ireland when I was only 16. I played with Guy Jackson, Betty Lombard, Jim Fitzgibbon, Cyril Kemp, Joe Hackett and Maeve Brennan and they were all very supportive. When I went to Wimbledon as a junior, Joe Hackett was the Irish number one at the time and he and his wife Betty couldn’t have been nicer to me.
 
I’m a very happy go lucky person and I never thought it was unusual to have such success, I was just delighted to meet so many lovely people and have such great fun. I even made it to the semi-finals of the French Open and we were leading 5-3 in the final set but then my partner stepped on the ball! When I was about 21, I went to San Francisco to work as a teacher and Alf Walsh of the ILTA wrote ahead to his American counterpart to let him know I was coming. When I stepped off the liner, I was greeted by the American Tennis Association and invited to play against the New York State Champion, on television from Ford University. That shook me quite a bit because I’d never before even seen television. The court was canvas stretched over wood, which was terribly fast. In the knock-up, I couldn’t even see the ball. It was like a bullet! I thought to myself “Holy God! I can either burst into tears and run away or pull myself together.” So I got my act together and I won it 6-2, 6-4. They all thought I was great but I just thought I’d been lucky to survive.
 
When I returned to Ireland and married I continued to play league tennis. 37 years ago I was a Davis Cup selector with another lady, Heather Flinn – the men voted us in because we had proven our interest and dedication. One year Ireland played the USA in the RDS and I was in charge of the ball boys and I found some lovely children from local schools to take part. McEnroe was playing and he could be rather nasty so I had them on court all week while he practiced so that they’d get used to him. During the matches, he would throw all their balls away but the youngsters would switch the balls behind their backs and give the same balls back to him. The crowd loved this! They were wonderful young people.
 
I love music and had the great honour of playing tennis with Pavarotti over the years. Whenever he would come to play in Ireland, Fitzwilliam would ask me to play him because I have good control and can put the ball wherever I want. The first time we played he said “June Anne, I think you play cat and mouse with me…” but I told him that if anything happened to him on the court I’d have to deal with the wrath of all those who had bought tickets for that night’s show! There were always two tickets for me at the box office when he performed here. Once when he was performing in Ireland I was held up coaching in Malahide and I called the box office to tell the manager of the theatre that I was in a tracksuit and would not make it home in time to change and he told me to come along as I was. He and his wife met me at the door and escorted me to my seat and I had a most wonderful night of champagne and music in my tracksuit!
 
The lovely thing about tennis is that you can still play well later in life. I’ve been playing for six decades now! Above all, you meet very, very nice people in sport. Whether you win or lose, you have to talk with your opponent and shake hands – it knocks the corners off you. I think the Irish make wonderful representatives of the country when abroad and I am always very proud to fly the Irish flag wherever I play.
For further information on all these events please contact Tennis Ireland on 01 8844010.