Record entries taken for 103rd annual Albury Easter Open

The 103^rd staging of the event has attracted more than 340 entries across all age groups, with the tournament to run from Good Friday through to Easter Monday at the Albury grass courts.

A total of $6500 in prize money is up for grabs across the four-day event, with the winners of the open men’s and ladies singles to pocket $900 each.

Albury Tennis Association president Ken Wurtz was delighted with the number of entries accepted, but admitted it took him a bit by surprise.

“I think it’s because we’ve got the junior points tournaments, so there’s a few entries in those and the AMT (Australian Money Tournament) one as well,” he said.

“It’s the first time we’ve had the under 12s and 14s as points tournaments.

“Most of the graded events are looking pretty good as well.

“Usually we have round robins in the graded events, but this year it looks like it will have to be knockout because it’s going to be full on with all the entries we’ve got and the time frame. 

“That’s an indication that we’ve got to get them out of the way.

“We’ll be going long into the night I think.”

Wurtz said a travelling group from Canberra has 90 players registered for the tournament. 

“The Canberra crew have been coming for years and one year we didn’t have points, so they decided to go somewhere else, but when we got our tournament back, they’ve come back again,” he said.

“We can run pretty big tournaments, we’ve proven that before.

“I think we’ve got pretty good kitchen staff that make really good food, so it attracts a lot of people because we service the players very well.

“We usually have a fair few locals play in it, but we get a lot of visitors come for the junior tournaments because it’s a silver tournament.

“We’d like to get a lot of local people in there as well, but they seem to be doing something else on the holidays.”

Wurtz added the courts are in pristine condition and everything will be ready to go for the start of the tournament. 

“We just need to get through all the matches and hope there is no rain,” Wurtz said.

“If it does rain on the Monday, that’s about it and we’d have to cut down some of the matches, especially the consolations to a fast four format.”

Victorian Mitch Burman won last year’s open men’s singles, while Jessica Brzozowska was the ladies singles champion.