Soltalk January 2020 | Page 38

Sport From previous page 20 to February 2, 2020. It will be the 108th edition of the Australian Open, the 52nd in the Open Era, and the first Grand Slam of the year. The tournament will consist of events for professional players in singles, doubles and mixed doubles. Junior and wheelchair players will compete in singles and doubles tournaments. The tournament is run by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and is part of the 2020 ATP Tour and the 2020 WTA Tour calendars under the Grand Slam category. The tournament consists of both men’s and women’s singles and doubles draws as well as the mixed doubles events. There are singles and doubles events for both boys and girls (players under 18), which are part of the Grade A category of tournaments. There are also singles, doubles and quad events for men’s and women’s wheelchair tennis players as part of the NEC tour under the Grand Slam category. The tournament will be played on hard courts and will take place across a series of 25 courts, the three main show courts Rod Laver Arena, Hisense Arena and Margaret Court Arena. 1573 Arena (formerly Show Court Two) was upgraded into a main show court. Novak Djokovic and Naomi Osaka are the defending champions in Men’s Singles and Women’s Singles, respectively. Club Nerja Rugby It has been a frustrating two months for Club Nerja Rugby. They were due to entertain Cadiz in November but the visitors were unable to fulfil the fixture. Nerja were awarded the match which retained their unbeaten position at the top of the Central Division of the Andalusian League 2. They finished the month with a visit to Rincon de la Victoria to take on CR Victoriano. This was a hard-fought battle which saw the lead changing repeatedly. With two tries apiece and a penalty to Nerja they went into the second-half 15-14 ahead. Both sides scored a brace of tries each to leave Nerja trailing by 30-31 going into the closing stages of the game. They pushed over for a try which gave them the narrow 35-31 victory. 36 Due to a peculiarity of the bonus point system in the league, Nerja went into December in second place in the league. Their only game in December was the awaited visit to Sotogrande for the showdown with leaders CR del Estrecho. With many players unavailable and with others playing out of position Nerja had a difficult task. They felt themselves lucky to only trail 0-15 at the interval. In the second half the home side ran in 8 tries to take a 61-0 victory. This dropped Nerja to third in the league after the first round of games. They now have few weeks in which to reorganise before the journey to Algeciras on January 19 to take on CR Bahia 89. Their next home game is the following week against Marbella.