RISING FROM ASHES: Terranora club is back on serve

Terranora members are thrilled with their new clubhouse, two years in the making.

CELEBRATION: Dion Andrews, Joan Nicoll, Graham Nicoll , Vesna O'Connor, Debbie Teitzel, Geoff Dowling and Rob Nienhuis are all smiles about the future of the Tennis Terranora Club. Picture: Richard Manando

IN A comeback rally worthy of any champion, Tennis Terranora looks set to be in the winning court after the final fitout of its rebuilt clubhouse at the Joan Nichol Tennis Centre at Terranora.

The building, which was destroyed by arsonists in 2017, is now at the lock-up stage and club president Rob Nienhuis said the final internal work was expected to take between two to four weeks to complete.

For Nienhuis and the club, it has been a long and at time frustrating process to get the club back to where it was before the fire, but he said there was now an air of excitement among members.

"To see the clubhouse rise again, literally from the ashes has been very rewarding,” Nienhuis said.

"We have had tremendous support from not only the tennis community and organisations like Tennis NSW, but also from the Tweed community who have supported our fundraising efforts.

"We are also very grateful for a major boost from the ANZ Community Fund which provided us $10,000 which has gone towards improving the hard courts.

"The club has continued to play competition and operate the centre and courts thanks to support from Tweed Shire Council, but we can't wait to move back into the clubhouse.”

Nienhuis said the facility now had improved security, including 10 CCTV cameras and a hi-tech burglary system.

Plans are now being made for an official function to mark the reopening of the clubhouse in September.

"It was been amazing to see just how many people have been following the progress of the rebuild through Facebook and we want to thank everyone for their support during the project,” Nienhuis said.

"We have all our courts operating, including our clay courts and we have also upgraded our lights to LED lights which are more energy saving so we are almost back to our 2017 situation.”

Nienhuis said there was a renewed interest in the sport thanks to the efforts of Ash Barty, and the club was looking forward to welcoming a new era of tennis on the Tweed.

To find out about Tennis Terranora, visit www.tennisterranora.com.au.