By SAM DEBENHAM

MORE than 100 of the region's most promising tennis talents gathered at the Bathurst Tennis Centre yesterday to contest the local round of the Medibank Junior Development Series despite the gloomy weather.

The opening round of 14 to be played throughout the Central West during the coming six months, the Bathurst tournament saw 115 players turn out with the aim of doing enough to make the Champion of Champions tournament in August.

The persistent rain threatened to force organisers to abandon the event but with the precipitation easing off in the afternoon most matches were able to get back on court albeit under less than ideal conditions.

"We got back on in the afternoon, it hasn't been too bad, the courts have hung in there pretty well," co-ordinator Andrew Mitton said.

"It's only a one-day event so we've been getting bits and pieces of it finished when we can ? it's very hard to re-run a tournament like this if it gets rained out so we just cancel the remaining matches if the rain becomes too much."

The series sees competitors playing throughout the 14 tournaments, with each being played under a round-robin format through the under 10, 12, 14, 16 and 21s age groups.

They then go into play-offs at each tournament and are awarded points according to where they finish.

Each players' six best results are then tallied and the top eight from each age group progress to the Champion of Champions tournament, from where the top four then go on to the state finals.

Virtually all of Australia's elite players have had a grounding in the series.

"It has been running for at least 15 years as far as I know," Mitton said.

"This is pretty much the first stepping stone for all the major Australian players who have done well over the last few decades."