[1] Balmacewen player Matt McCutcheon returns the ball against Mornington-Roslyn in the Dunedin premier tennis competition on Saturday. Photo by Jane Dawber. The intriguing battle at the top of Dunedin men's club tennis continued at the weekend as both Cosy Dell and McGlashan recorded 6-0 wins and kept their unbeaten records.
They meet next week in the culmination of the first round, with McGlashan holding a one-point lead on bonus points.
Cosy Dell did not drop a set against Taieri.
Andrew Mitchell provided some big serves in losing 6-3, 6-3 to Nick Hornstein at No 1, but the four students, who represent various provinces in summer, continued their dominance over local players.
McGlashan was pushed at times by Eastern Harbour, which was without No 1 Campbell Higgins.
National junior representative Harry James raced to a 5-0 lead against Ryan Eggers before winning 6-1, 6-3.
Oliver and Carlos Reid both won although Oliver relied on a second-set injury to Dimitar Trifunowski after dropping a first-set tiebreak, and Carlos was taken to 6-4 in the third by Mike Smith.
Mornington-Roslyn beat Balmacewen 5-1 with the feature being the first appearance of George Wigley, who beat North Harbour representative Sam Poulter 7-5, 6-4.
This was the best match seen in Dunedin this season, and much credit is due to Wigley to come in with no matchplay.
Wigley moved to Christchurch for his final schooling, and his tennis, and is now doing tertiary studies in Dunedin.
Matt Foo was too steady in the second and third sets for James Bourne, and Adam Williams and Ollie Scott took all three in the bottom half.
Many leading players were absent in the women's ties.
Eastern Harbour remained unbeaten with a 5-1 win over Balmacewen Diamonds and Balmacewen Sapphires also got only one off Taieri.
St Clair kept in touch when it beat Mornington-Roslyn 4-2.
Perhaps the best individual effort came from North Otago student Nicky Wallace, who beat Lauren Fowler (St Clair) 6-3, 6-4, but Southlander Scarlett Cuthill and Cantabrian Jessika Brass took straight-sets singles wins.
Brass fought against a stiff neck which restricted her movement, and Rakhee Raghunandan tipped the balance with a hard-fought three-set win.
- By Dennis Radford
No comments:
Post a Comment