Isle of Man tennis star Billy Harris suffered defeated in Australian Open qualifying earlier this week.

The 30-year-old went into the round of 28 in the men’s singles on the back of an excellent performance against former world number three Stefanos Tsitsipas in the United Cup in Perth the previous week.

There, Harris pushed the Greek player – currently ranked 34th in the world – all the way, beating him the first set 6-4 and valiantly going down fighting 4-7 in the third set tie-break.

From there, Harris travelled to Melbourne for qualifying action in the Australian Open where he was seeded 15th in the draw which was held in Sunday.

He was pitted against Luxembourg’s Chris Rodesch, whose best performance at a Grand Slam was reaching the first round proper at Wimbledon last year.

Unfortunately for Harris, the Luxembourg number one proved too strong and prevailed in straight sets 3-6, 4-6 to book his place in the second round of qualifying.

An update on the indoor court work which is currently taking place at Albany Lawn Tennis Club’s Ballaughton Meadows venue.

Three committee members – Tim Davies, Bryan Sharp and Ray Roberts - plus Ian Copley spent several hours on Saturday continuing work to prepare the court for re-opening.

All scaffolding has been removed, and the car park is now available. It is intended to have an un-official opening as soon as possible but they have to be sure that the court is in a safe state after having heavy equipment on it for several weeks.

The club will be holding a few informal fundraising events, including the coin counting by the juniors, and the committee hope all members will support events or even offer to run one.

PAT SHARP