By DAVE WORSLEY
For the second consecutive year the Auckland championship finals were forced to move indoors - and for the second year running Alistair Hunt and Ilke Gers won their respective finals.
The players started their matches under cloudy skies at the ASB Tennis Centre, but the first hint of rain
sent them indoors.
In the men's final, the big-serving Hunt was the main beneficiary of the move inside, away from the windy conditions.
Seventh seed Adam McNeil found his own serve broken in the first game, but then somehow broke back from 40-0 down.
At 2-1 to Hunt, the game went indoors, and he raced out to a 4-1 lead before wrapping up the set 6-2. Hunt maintained his good serving to take out the second 6-4. Try as he might, McNeil could not come up with the answers or the power to dent the second seed, who still has to wear a major bandage on his leg after three operations on his knee.
"It's a little sore, but in many ways it makes me hungrier to go out and win quickly," he said.
Hunt was enthusiastic about the way the likes of McNeil and beaten semifinalist GD Jones were putting pressure on the more experienced players.
"It's good that there's some young guys coming through.
"They seemed to have improved a lot with travelling overseas.
"Hopefully, we can get six to 10 guys travelling together and trying to help each other out."
In the women's final, there was a clash of styles as top seed Gers took on more experienced fourth seed Rewa Hudson. Gers hits a flat ball while Hudson puts on plenty of top spin. Last night it worked better for Gers, who won 7-6 (7-4), 6-1.
In the first set, Hudson broke early and led 2-0 before her South African-born opponent pulled ahead to 4-2 - only to drop the next three games and trail 5-4. She needed the tiebreak to clinch the set.
But in the second, Gers' steely determination emerged as she raised the tempo, and Hudson found errors creeping in.
Although pleased to win, Gers wants to improve and move to the bigger international events.
"There's always room for improvement," she said. "It took a while to get used to her game. She puts a lot of spin on it. I'm going to try my best to get as many ranking points as possible in the New Year and go from there."
