Sade in hard-fought win

VICTORY: Sade Atkinson with the spoils after winning the Wellington open singles title.

Gun Wairarapa tennis player Sade Atkinson has big plans.

The 17-year-old has ambitions of making a fulltime career out of the sport and is hoping to score a tennis scholarship at a university in the United States early next year to help her along the way.

Before that, however, the former Gladstone School pupil will travel to Turkey with New Zealand Federation Cup rep Emma Hayman to play in a series of Futures tournaments, a similar path to that followed some seasons ago by another Wairarapa prodigy, Marcus Daniell, now a member of the country's Davis Cup squad and a regular winner on the professional circuit.

That Atkinson has the potential to perform strongly at the highest levels was illustrated just last weekend when she beat none other than Hayman in the singles final at the Wellington open championships. It was a typically gutsy effort from Atkinson who bounced back from losing the first set 2-6 to win the next two 7-5, 6-2.

That success came hard on the heels of Atkinson leading her Wellington club side to victory in Tennis Wellington's premier division interclub competition, beating Thorndon 4-2 in the decider.

And she will be looking for more success on the interclub scene when she plays for Campbell's Bay in North Shore's post-Christmas competition over the next few weeks, the club having organised for her to fly from Wellington and return to help boost their chances of a title win.

On the interclub front here the Wairarapa Tennis Association is hosting their finals day for the 2013-14 season at the Masterton Tennis Centre tomorrow. Matches will commence at 12.30pm with the prize-giving planned for 5.30pm.

No matter what the results tomorrow, however, the individual premier division league will be won by Masterton's Chad Parson who has a commanding lead on the points table. He sits on 52 points, well ahead of Brett Dymond on 34 and Alistair McWilliam on 30. Playing off in the regional two final will be Opaki 1 and Masterton who finished preliminary round action level pegging on 51pts while all four teams in the doubles grade still have a mathematical chance of taking away the spoils.

Meanwhile, the Carterton Tennis Club in association with Greytown-based coach and former New Zealand representative Belinda Cordwell are holding an open doubles tournament at Carterton on April 1 from which all profits will be donated to Life Flight.

The tourney will run from 9am to noon and partners will be organised for those who enter as individuals.