6 hours Ago By Tahlia Sinclair
A gentleman's agreement rule change has forced a Riverina team to withdraw from Hume League finals. or signup to continue reading Henty Park Tennis Club section one captain Jade Forwood said his team was informed on Tuesday, March 4 that the mixed team's female players would be ineligible to play finals. The ruling made by the Hume Country Tennis Association (HTCA) left female players in the section one team based in Wagga ineligible to play.
Two other teams within the club forfeited their finals games on Saturday, March 8 in support. But the HCTA president said the ruling was not new and should not have come as a surprise. John Seidel said the agreement to not allow the players to compete in finals was made in September last year at the AGM, with Henty present.
He said the decision was made to ensure fairness across the competition. "We have got to grade the teams evenly, if they'd all played in one section one side it would have been unfair to the other clubs in that section one," Seidel said. His understanding was that the players had decided to not play for the 2024/25 season following the combination of the two highest grades.
However, when it was made clear they would still join for parts of the competition he welcomed that. Forwood said his team was devastated by the decision and cannot understand why their team had been targeted. He said the team had not been made aware of the decision by the club.
Forwood understands the decision had been made at the start of the season, however maintains it was not communicated to him or the players in his team. Henty Park Tennis Club president John Janetzki declined to comment on the situation. Male players and females in other teams within the competition who live in Wagga were allowed to play.
"Our whole team is very sad and disappointed that we played all season, travelled a lot of distance, and can no longer field the team in the finals," he said. "The rule changes don't make sense, why were women excluded but not men? Why the Wagga women specifically and not the Wagga men? "Why are some Wagga women from other teams allowed to play in finals, but specifically, our team is not? "In the by-laws that run the whole association, there's nothing about this, there's nothing that would govern or rule us ineligible." Not only disappointed by the decision from a playing standpoint, Forwood is concerned there will be a knock-on impact moving forward.
He expects it will dissuade Wagga-based women from playing in future years. HCTA runs a mixed-team competition. This type of competition is not available within Wagga and players have been travelling to play for many years.
Forwood believes preventing Wagga women in the team from playing is the result of attempted targeted action towards a player in previous years. The core concern communicated to Forwood is a gap in skill between the women in his team and those in other teams. "It will be bad for tennis in general not having strong women role models," he said.
"Not allowing your best players to play in competitions always has to be a bad thing for tennis. "Tennis, like many other sports, has declining numbers, especially in the country. There are grants and incentives to try and get people back into the sport, but this is going to do the opposite.
"People won't want to travel, they won't want to participate if that's how they're treated. They'll just play socially." Seidel was confused as to why the team had left it so late to raise concern with the ruling, saying a miscommunication had occurred at the club level.
"They were told very clearly in the beginning if they wanted to play part-time we would accept that wonderfully but finals would be another thing because you upset the whole balance," he said. "There is a miscommunication not really from us but from the Henty club." Seidel also refuted that there was any malice in the ruling towards any one team specifically, and said the decision came down to Henty's team having too many high-ranking players.
Clubs submit player rankings prior to the season beginning and a grading panel accepts or refutes the club's grade. Seidel said that if the team felt there was ambiguity about the ruling they should have approached the association sooner. "This is no about being prejudice of women players or avoiding elite players playing our association, it's not about that whatsoever.
It was about team balance, a club balance across the whole spectrum and we as an association have an obligation to our clubs to provide a fair environment to play in," Seidel said. DAILY Today's top stories curated by our news team. WEEKDAYS Grab a quick bite of today's latest news from around the region and the nation.
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