Tennis: Reynolds' doubles title celebrated

Rob Reynolds

Hawke's Bay Tennis officials were last night toasting an international doubles title won by the province's top man Rob Reynolds.

Reynolds and Taranaki's Ajeet Rai won yesterday's final of the 18 and under Auckland ITF Indoor Championships with a 6-1, 6-2 win against Chinese Taipei's Shao-Min Ko and Hong Kong's Arthur Chau.

"This is a huge result for Rob when you consider the calibre of the international field," Hawke's Bay Tennis chairman John Penny said referring to the fact the tournament played at the Scarbro Tennis Centre in Glen Innes also attracted players from Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong.

For 18-year-old Reynolds it was a case of sweet revenge as Ko had beaten him 6-3, 6-3 in their singles semifinal the previous day. Reynolds' 15-year-old brother Finn was beaten 6-4, 6-2 by Canterbury's Conner Heap in his semifinal.

Heap beat Ko 6-4, 6-2 in the final. When the Reynolds brothers, who play out of the Hawke's Bay Lawn club, won their quarter-finals they became the first Hawke's Bay players to qualify for the semifinals of an International Tennis Federation event at the same time.

The pair, who are ranked one and two respectively on the Bay's senior rankings, won three national titles last summer. Finn captured the under-16 singles title and the doubles with Queenstown's Miki Nobuzawa while Rob won the under-18 doubles title with Heap.-Greendale's Russell Broughton and Wanganui's Karen Cranston won the mixed doubles title for the third consecutive year at the annual Hawke's Bay Veterans Open tournament in Napier at the weekend. They beat Tauranga pair Larry Seales and Kerry Noble 11-6.

Broughton and his clubmate Damon Curtis were pipped 7-5 in the tiebreaker of Saturday's men's doubles final when they took on Seales and fellow Tauranga player Quentin Maisey.

The tournament attracted players from across the North Island and used the Hawke's Bay Lawn and Greendale courts on Saturday. With the biggest number of entries for at least three years, both the Nelson Park and Greendale courts were used for yesterday's mixed doubles.