Top Hawke's Bay tennis players to 'rally for a cause"
A void created by the cancellation of the Takapau Tennis Tournament has been filled by some of the country's top players in a bid to raise much-needed funds for charity.
'Rally for a Cause' will see a series of exhibition double matches take place at the Hawke's Bay Lawn Tennis Club on Saturday with all donations benefiting Cranford Hospice.
Organiser and Greendale Tennis Club member Peter Wogan says as fans of the sport, they were motivated by the need to have top-level tennis played in the region.
"We don't get to see this level of tennis very often so fundamentally it was about a really good series of tennis matches for everyone to enjoy and then the next thing was to raise some money for Cranford."
Hawke's Bay tennis coach and pro, Luke Donovan had organised one of NZ’s top tennis players, Rhett Purcell, whom he used to coach, to play with him in the tournament.
With the tournament's cancellation, they decided to capitalise on the Auckland-based player's availability.
"Rhett is a good friend of mine who I coached for five or six years when he was a youngster and he's gone on to do amazing things with his tennis, even representing New Zealand in the Davis Cup.
"He had obviously booked his flights and was still keen to come down so myself and a couple of good friends thought it would be a good idea to try and utilise him coming down and try and get a few good players together to create an exhibition and raise some money for Cranford Hospice."
They have also been "fortunate" to get professional Hawke's Bay raised tennis player Rob Reynolds. Jono Fall, Olivia Addis, Jane Wyllie, Alex Cave and Roisin Dinan will also compete.
The event will start with a Fast 4s format for the Mixed Doubles from 10.30am. There will be four pairings in the Mixed Doubles with a semi-final, final and a playoff for third and fourth.
The feature match will be a best of three full sets between Rhett and Luke against Rob and Jono at about 1pm.
Having not played a competitive match in a while, Luke says he looking forward to Saturday.
"It will be interesting just to see how it goes."
"I have a good rivalry with Rob so it will be good to be competing against him again and obviously Jono is a really good junior who I've coached in the past and is hitting really well too."
Entry to the event will be by a voluntary donation and proceeds from food sales will all go to Cranford.
There will also be a number of Silent Auction items up for grabs including tennis memorabilia donated by the players, wine from some of the top wineries in Hawke’s Bay and other interesting items.
People will also be able to receive a serve from one of the players for a donation.
Having been involved with the Hawke's Bay Wine Auction for many years, Peter understands how important funds are with the pandemic disrupting planned events.
"So it was well we've got a reason for getting people together we might as well raise some money."
While they don't have a fundraising target, they have a number of ideas that they hope will "open people's wallets".
"We said if we raise a couple of hundred bucks that would be awesome but that wasn't the focus, it was knowing we would raise something and whatever it was that would be appreciated."
He hopes it will become a staple on the tennis calendar.
"I don't want this to be a one-off event," he says. "I want the ability for that kind of tennis to be a yearly event and to raise money every year for Cranford and hopefully we can get some momentum and raise more and more money each year."
He says they would fit in with other events and the schedules of players to ensure a high level of tennis is able to be played.
