Local youngsters fill open spaces

A strong local contingent turned out for the annual Northland Junior Tennis Open at Thomas Neale Memorial Park in Kamo.

While delighted with the local showing, tournament organiser Wendy Sykes said it was a shame out-of-towners failed to make the trip north for the two days of tennis.

The 42 competitors was well down on previous years. "Usually we get a lot of players from North Harbour and Auckland coming up for this event, however, we did not get them up this year. I'm not sure why really ... another tournament was held in Hamilton this weekend, which may have taken some players out of the Northland mix," the Tennis Northland development officer speculated.

Sykes said there was a bigger problem at hand, however.

"In general, coaches in Auckland and North Harbour don't seem to encourage their players to go outside of the Auckland region. We need to work on getting coaches to promote our events through the help of Tennis Northern, which Tennis Northland comes under."

The players who turned out enjoyed plenty of competitive matches. Finals were held throughout Sunday and due to the number of players in the 10- and 12-year grades, matches were played in a round-robin format.

Mairtown's Harriette Baxter claimed the Girls 10-years singles, with her clubmate Mandy Ross the runner-up, while in the Boys 10-years singles, Daniel Hammond won the title with fellow Mairtown junior Campbell Mortimer runner-up.

Gladstone Parnell player Sarah-Kate Weekley dominated the Girls 12-years singles, beating Mairtown's Mikaela Crawford, and Weekley, along with Waipu's Catherine McClure went on to beat Baxter and Crawford in the Girls 10 and 12-years doubles final.

In the Girls 14-years final, Glenfield's Tabitha Porter defeated Mairtown's Hannah Ross, 6-0, 6-0, while the Boys 14-years singles was a closely fought tussle, with Mangawhai's Connor van Dalsum beating Hakopa Baker from Mairtown, 6-4, 4-6, 10-5.

Mairtown's Ben Muller defeated Ben Holmes from Mairangi Bay, 6-1, 2-6, 6-1 in the Boys 16-years singles final, while Waipu's Abbey Sykes fought hard to beat Mangawhai's Alana Torrie in a close Girls 16-years final. Sykes won 7-6, 7-4 in the tiebreaker, 1-6, 6-4.

Noah Gulick and William Muller were too strong for Holmes and Ben Muller, winning the Boys 16-years doubles, 6-7, 7-6, and 11-9 in the third set super tiebreaker.

Full results will be in the Northern Advocate later this week.