By David Graham

The Kiama and Shellharbour District Tennis Association men's night competition got underway last week with 46 teams representing six local tennis clubs.

The bulk of the teams are from Kiama (16) and Jamberoo (12).

Five apiece are from Gerringong and Minnamurra with three from McDonald Park in Albion Park Rail.

There are six divisions with Division Five broken into two groups.

Kiama and Jamberoo are frontrunners for the number of winning divisions but the overall strength and standard is quite high.

Bob Morgan, Bill Summerside and Mick Puglisi (Kiama) alongside Paul Berry, Dave O'Connor and Peter Quine share favouritism in Division 3.

In Division 1 all teams are in the mix and it will be a very closely contested competition.

The Kiama 2 team of Jason Clark, Richard Welsh, Jeff Brown and Darren Johnston are marginal favourites ahead of the Kiama 4 team of Dave Lehman, Frank Wallner and "young gun" James Cain.

It will be very interesting to see how the McDonald Park Division 1 team performs with Harrison O'Keefe, Tom Howle and youngster Hayden Sleigh.

Hayden is aged 14 and is a KSDTA top junior who recently won the Champion of Champions singles event at Ulladulla and followed that up with a strong performance in the recent state finals at Penrith.

Kiama and Shellharbour district is one district that is "bucking the trend' in relationship to tennis competitions.

Canterbury-Bankstown, one of the larger Sydney metropolitan districts, has no night competitions.

Many tennis players are opting now to try the current craze of pickleball.

The current men's night comp has two full rounds, with the semi-finals scheduled for early June.