Tennis players open street season in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk

For a week, passions ran high on the tennis courts in the sports towns of the Yuri Gagarin Culture and Recreation Park and the Santa Hotel Complex. About a hundred fans of this sport competed for medals in the first tennis tournament of 2025. The competition was dedicated to the opening of the outdoor season.

The tournament organizers made a rather wise decision, dividing into subgroups beginner tennis players, advanced amateurs and rather experienced ones, winners and prize winners of city and regional tournaments. Each participant belonging to the named subgroup fought for the right to rise to the podium with equal rivals.

In the singles category of men "Debutants" there was no equal to De Gwang Il. In the women's category, Natalia Ilyina celebrated the victory. Vyacheslav Chun and Anna Kim rose to the highest step of the podium among "Amateurs".

In the "Major League" men's final, Oleg Bondarenko and Vyacheslav Aksyutenko met. Aksyutenko won the first set 6:4. In the second set, Bondarenko stepped up and forced his opponent to make unforced errors.

As a result – a 6:3 victory and 1:1 in the match. In the tie-break, Oleg Bondarenko was leading 9:5 and had 4 match points. He was unable to realize any of them. Vyacheslav Aksyutenko increased the power of his attacks in this period of the game and tied the score at 9:9.

However, he could not do more. Two decisive rallies were won by Bondarenko – 11:9 and 2:1 in the match. The time of the match speaks for itself how equal the meeting was. The finalists spent 2 hours and 20 minutes on the court.

The final of the women's "Higher League" group was no less dramatic. Ekaterina Nechaeva and Lidiya Khmeleva "crossed" rackets in the main match. Lidiya won the first set with a score of 6:3. In the second set, Ekaterina took a convincing revenge 6:1. Ekaterina Nechaeva finished the tie-break in her favor 10:3.

In the men's doubles category "Amateurs" there was no equal to the duet of Alexander Efremenkov/Sergey Volkov.

In the "Major League" Vyacheslav Aksyutenko/Valery Shcherbinsky confidently beat Yakov Sednev and Anatoly Palienko - 6:2, 6:2 and 2:0. In the women's "Major League" final, Tatyana Usacheva/Irina Aksyutenko and Anna Vodneva/Anna Knyazhitse met.

The final gave the fans a beautiful game of equal opponents. The first set was won by Vodneva/Knyazhitsa – 6:3. In the second set, Usacheva/Aksyutenko with great difficulty managed to tip the scales in their favor – 6:4.