By Foster Niumata
Last year started so well for Opotiki tennis player Rewa Hudson that it took her months to come back to earth.
There was the stunning win over world No 93 Rika Hiraki and a fighting loss to No 17 Lisa Raymond in last summer's ASB Bank Classic, then being
runner-up in Wellington's ITF Futures event.
It was too good, though.
"After the Classic I was pretty excited and started putting a bit of pressure on myself, trying to perform that well all the time," said Hudson, who finished a respectable junior career at the United States Open.
"I think I was playing a few mind-games with myself and once I got over that and got back to reality, I think I started playing all right."
There was another hitch mid-year, when she pulled knee ligaments in a fall in a Polish event. That knocked her back for two months, but the 18-year-old managed to lift her ranking by 100 spots to 344 in a year that was average judged by results.
After a month's rest, Hudson is champing at the bit again, armed with a main draw wildcard into next week's Classic at Stanley St. The other has gone to her tennis other-half, Leanne Baker. It is her first wildcard.
New Zealand's all-Maori Fed Cup team have benefited, as Shelley Stephens and Niki Tippins (of Ngati Pakeha) are into the qualifying singles and doubles.
Of Hudson, coach Peter Langsford said: "It's quite difficult to come out of juniors into seniors because it's a completely different ballgame.
"In juniors, everything's taken care of. In seniors, you're out there in Futures and satellites on your own. It's a matter of maturing."
Hudson now recalls last January's heroics against Hiraki and Raymond as a confidence booster. "It shows me I could probably do it again," she said.
All Hudson has told Baker about her first time as a wildcard in 1997 was that the occasion was pretty cool. It was also pretty shortlived, as Hudson won just two games against eventual champion Marion Maruska.
Baker knows it is going to be nerve-racking, but she's keen. She would not mind even drawing a seed - or Mary Joe Fernandez.
"I'd just feel a little bit more relaxed," she said. So she would sleep well?
"Yeah, sleeping's not a problem."
It's true. Before her first senior match, Baker curled up and slept during the car trip from Te Awamutu to Hamilton. Her folks had to wake her up to play.
Her parents, Anne and Lou, and grandparents, Lorna and Cliff, will be in Auckland's stands. They hardly see her play. Anne and Lou sold their home two years ago to help pay for Leanne's career.
They are still putting money up for her, though with a worrying eye on the exchange rate, especially when it can cost $40 just for restringing rackets overseas.
Baker turns 18 in a week and will finish off her junior career at the majors, of which the 1998 highlights were the Australian Open doubles final with Hudson, and Wimbledon's last 16 singles, where her lefthanded serve-volley was lethal.
Her best senior result was making the semifinals of a $US10,000 Futures in a sunburned town named Dalby, in the middle of nowhere in Australia in October.
She and Hudson got there with a two-hour bus ride from Brisbane, then taxied to the courts. Maybe only a stray dog watched Baker advance.
Think she'll be going back again?
"I hope not."
Pictured: Rewa Hudson. HERALD PICTURE / RUSSELL SMITH
By Foster Niumata
Last year started so well for Opotiki tennis player Rewa Hudson that it took her months to come back to earth.
There was the stunning win over world No 93 Rika Hiraki and a fighting loss to No 17 Lisa Raymond in last summer's ASB Bank Classic, then being
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