Identical Twins Isaac and Dylan Goodhew from the Redland Bay Tennis Club are the first twins to make the Metropolitan East Secondary Schools Tennis Team. There are only four boys that can make this team making the Goodhew brothers 50 per cent it. This is a huge achievement for both of the boys and something that they have worked very hard for.
The trials were held at Griffith University last Tuesday with 16 boys and 16 girls aged between 13 and 19 competing to try and make the Met East team. The 32 players were chosen by selectors out of the many young tennis players across the region based off their Australian Ranking. The highest 16 ranked in the boys and the highest 16 ranked in the girls were able to try out for the Metropolitan East team.
It was a long hot day, with the first lot of matches starting at 8am and the last match finishing at 4.30pm. The medic was on hand all day to attend to any injuries or heat stroke that may have occurred and the players were all reminded to keep their fluids up throughout the day. The medic was also keeping a close eye on the temperature, as the temperature out at Griffith on Tuesday was very close to becoming too high to compete.
Due to this extreme heat, up to the quarter finals of the main draw competition and semis of the feed-in draw was first to six games with a tie break at five all, the rest of the matches were all played first to nine games with a tie break at eight all and a long deuce.
Dylan went into the trials as the number 3 seed having a slightly higher rank then his brother which certainly gave him an advantage. He won all 3 of his matches quite comfortably, winning his first match 6-1, his second 9-2 and his third and final match 9-6, which gave him direct entry into the final team of 4 boys.
Isaac had a tougher tournament playing 5 matches with a total of 7 hours on the court over the day. Isaac won his first match 6-5 & then lost to the 2nd seed 3-9 which put him in the feed-in draw. He then won his next 3 matches, 6-3, 6-4 and the final match to make the team, 9-7. Physical exhaustion was evident in this last match but both players were giving it their all with the last game taking 10 minutes and going to deuce 6 times. Isaac however was the winner and gained the final spot in the team.
This team of 4 boys and 4 girls travel to Townsville next month to represent the region at the State Championships, where 12 regions will battle it out to try and win the 2017 Queensland Regional Teams Championship During this State Carnival. Each player from all of the different regions will also compete in a singles event to determine the eight boys and eight girls who will represent Queensland in the national schools tennis championship, the Pizzey Cup held in Shepparton, Victoria later this year.