IT will be a battle on the court when the best from the North West take on the best from the North Coast in Inverell this weekend.
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The Northern NSW Champions of Champions tournament will bring together the cream of players from the two areas, with the best then progressing on to the State Finals in October.
Tamworth will be well-represented, with the Tamworth-based North West Tennis Academy having more than 20 players qualify.
West Tamworth also has two players heading up in George Gardiner and Emma Barnes.
The players qualified through the Medibank Junior Development Series played earlier in the year.
“It’s a series played throughout the North West region,” North West Tennis Academy coach Jarrod Campbell said.
“They receive points on the day depending on where they finish.”
The top eight in each age group on points will be playing at Inverell.
The players will be split into two pools of eight, with four North West and four North Coast representatives in each from U10s through to U21s.
They’ll play a round robin tomorrow and Sunday morning, following which the top three in each pool will progress to the knockout stages.
The top four will then go on to Sydney.
Campbell is excited about the prospects for several of his contingent, which will be led by Daniel Nash.
Nash is also one of the club’s coaches and will contest the U21s division.
“We expect a few to go on,” Campbell said.
“Hopefully out of that 22, seven to 11 will go onto the next level.”
He said they had all been training hard and peaking towards this tournament.
“They haven’t had a lot of tournament play in the last month,” he said.
“They’ve been working hard on the practice court leading up to this.
“A lot of their sessions have been geared towards match play.”
The weekend will commence with a training day for the North West squad, which also includes players from Armidale, Gunnedah, Narrabri and Inverell.
Campbell and fellow regional coaches Justin Sherriff and Dale Martin will be running the day.