WELLINGTON - New Zealand have finished in an impressive fourth place at the world junior tennis finals in the Czech Republic.
The New Zealand team of Sebastian Lavie, Ben McLachlan and Barrett Franks shocked several higher-ranked teams to reach the semifinals at Prostejov over the weekend, notching wins over secondseeds USA, Argentina and eighth seeds Hungary in group play.
However, the unseeded New Zealanders were beaten 2-0 by Japan in the semifinals.
McLachlan was beaten 6-4 6-4 by Shu Saito and Lavie, who had an outstanding tournament, lost 7-5 4-6 6-4 to Yasutaka Uchiyama.
McLachlan and Lavie both lost their singles matches against top seeds Russia in yesterday's playoff for third and fourth.
