Heathmont Tennis Club is unsurprisingly located in Heathmont, an outer eastern suburb of Melbourne. The club has seven en-tout-cas tennis courts and has been operating since the mid-1920s. The club enters teams in all sorts of competitions ranging from juniors to mid-week ladies and seniors.

Heathmont Tennis Club History

In 1926 a number of Heathmont Orchardists got together to form Heathmont Tennis Club.

The original court was located near Heathmont Railway Station. A very small clubroom was built from fruit boxes.

The council allocated the clubland at our present site in the 1940s and a sand court was constructed where Court 3 (the cage) is today.

Four en tout cas courts were constructed in the 1940s, courts 1, 2, 4 and 5, together with a small clubhouse. At this time Court 3 was converted to en tout cas.

The lease on the land near the station expired in 1964.

The club room a very successful junior tournament during the 1960s, 1970s and into the 1980s held during the August/September school holidays.

The Davis Cup squad gave an exhibition at the clubhouse in 1971 and lights to Courts 4 and 5 were installed around this time.

Courts 6 and 7 were built at the end of the 1970s and the clubhouse was extended to the dimensions it is today around this time also.

The club had a very strong membership during the period 1960 to 1990. In 1989 – 1990 membership totalled 256. Of interest, during the early 1960s, there were 13 mid-week ladies teams.

The club declined rapidly from 1990 and when Robert Peterson (our present coach), came to the club, the membership was around 70. There were only 3 junior teams with the prospect of this number declining to one team only in 1996. Coaching numbers were around 20.

If not for the work of Jan Crapper, who joined the club in 1967, (she was Secretary from 1992 – 2005), and a group of mid-week ladies, including Marlene Elliot, there may have been no club for Robert Peterson to re-establish to its former glory. For a period of 10 years, there was a yearly mid-weekk ladies tournament held that raised much-needed funds.

Today we field around 18 – 20 junior teams and need to hire outside venues. We have 12 night teams, 4 or 5 Saturday afternoon teams and 2 or 3 pennant teams as well as a couple of mid-week ladies teams. It must be noted that with changing lifestyles, shops being open 7 days a week, night tennis has become convenient for people to get their competition fix.

Robert Peterson coached part-time from October 1995 to October 1998 when he left his International Banking Career, not knowing what the future held. A great deal has been achieved by our members in the ensuing 17 years and he has been an integral part of it.

Lights were installed to Courts 1 & 2 in around 2000 and Courts 3, 6 and 7 had their lights installed in 2003. Also, the clubhouse was renovated inside during this period.

With the most recent drought, tanks were installed in 2007 and they now water Courts 1, 2, 4 and 5. Of interest, we are now using 95% mains water than we did previously. It is also interesting to note, that during the drought of the late 1960s, a bore was drilled searching for water without any success.

The Maroondah Council has been very supportive of the club and they need to be acknowledged for their wonderful support in all of our projects.

The club had never won any tennis Victorian Pennant until 2005 when we were successful in winning Men’s Grade 12. Women’s Grade 6 followed in 2008 and the same girls backed up in 2009 to win Grade 5.

President Shield (the highest competition for Juniors in Eastern Region) was won for the first time in 2011 by Hayden Churchill and Amy Munro. We have been runners up in 2009 and 2012.

Robert Peterson has run 52 round-robin tournaments since 1995 and held the junior convenors role full-on from 1995 – 2009. In 2002, he was successful in winning the TCAV’s club coach of the year award.

Over the years many people have contributed to the success of Heathmont Tennis Club and the list of life members is a good place to start.

Today Heathmont Tennis Club is a vibrant oriented club and looks forward to the future with great confidence.