{"id":699793,"date":"2026-01-16T11:44:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T11:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/699793\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T11:44:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T11:44:10","slug":"westport-tennis-player-heading-to-junior-australian-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/699793\/","title":{"rendered":"Westport tennis player heading to Junior Australian Open"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An Irish junior tennis player is heading to Melbourne to compete at the Junior Australian Open.<\/p>\n<p>Eoghan Jennings, from Westport in Co Mayo, is the first Irish junior to compete at the event since 2022.<\/p>\n<p>He will travel to Australia as part of his winter competition programme and will take on one of the strongest junior fields in the world.<\/p>\n<p>His parents, Padraig and Ciara, said his qualification is &#8220;a fantastic reward for years of hard work&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Mary Ward, of Westport Tennis Club, which is a key part of Jennings&#8217; journey, said the club was &#8220;immensely proud of him&#8221;, adding that he is a credit to his family and his coaches, particularly his first coach Dan Irimia &#8220;who spotted Eoghan&#8217;s talent at the tender age of five&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Jennings&#8217; head coach Garret Barry said he hoped other young players will be inspired by his journey, &#8220;especially those outside the traditional tennis strongholds&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>National Performance Development Director Cian Blake described Jennings&#8217; qualification as a &#8220;remarkable milestone for him and for Irish tennis&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Jennings will begin his Junior Australian Open campaign next Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Irish junior tennis player is heading to Melbourne to compete at the Junior Australian Open. Eoghan Jennings,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":699794,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4105],"tags":[79,1068,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-699793","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115904608091816042","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=699793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/699794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=699793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=699793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=699793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}