George Baird, left, won the 14 and Under boys tournament final at the Basset St courts against Henry Christie on Sunday afternoon at the Wanganui Junior Tennis Open.
George Baird, left, won the 14 and Under boys tournament final at the Basset St courts against Henry Christie on Sunday afternoon at the Wanganui Junior Tennis Open.
While the weather closing in today made for a truncated timetable for the 2019 St Johns Club Wanganui Junior Tennis Open Tournament, the first titles decided yesterday saw some quality matches played.
The 10 and 14 year singles titles were decided in the late afternoon, taking advantage of the firstevening of daylight savings to finish play at 7.30pm, and therefore completing two full-on days were players had started their warmups at 7.30am on Saturday.
As well as the local contingent, youngsters had come from Manawatu, Hutt Valley, Wellington, Bay of Plenty, Taranaki, Auckland and Hawke's Bay to take part in one of the earliest tournaments of the season.
There were no surprises in the 10 and Under boys grade, as Auckland's No 1 seed Zachariah Wu won the final against Jacob Andrews 5-3 4-0, finishing on top of the 10 player grade.
Having come to some of the Palmerston North training sessions runs by Wanganui Tennis Club's new head coach Jono Spring, Manawatu's Samantha Greenwood won the 10 and Under girls grade, beating the other three entrants in a round robin format.
There was a couple of real surprises in the 14 and Under girls grade, as Wellington's fourth seed Alice Bolton flayed the competition to win the title in the 16-player grade, beating Hutt Valley's No 3 Charlotte Painter in the final 6-3 6-2.
"They were the less fancied of the two in the semis," said Spring.
It was regular transmission in the 14 and Under boys grade, although only just, as Hutt Valley's No 1 seed George Baird won the final against Wellington's No 3 seed Henry Christie 7-6 7-6.
Baird had won the 12 and Under singles title last year, and carried on at the older grade level in a stacked field of 20 players.
Henry Christie returns a volley.
The best of the Whanganui players was Mataamua Biddle Amoroa-Nicholls, who beat the No 8 seed in three sets in the 14 and Under boys competition, before being eliminated in the second round.
Amoroa-Nicholls then teamed with Wellington's Samuel Christie to win the consolation doubles.
There was a bizarre ending to the 22-player Open Men's tournament, when well travelled Cantabrian and University of California-Berkeley student Connor Heap won the final without taking the court.
Heap had been waiting for the winner of the semifinal between Whanganui's returning prodigal son Kyle Butters and highly regarded New Zealand coach Marc Paulik, with Paulik picking up a straight sets win 6-2 6-1.
However, in the second to last point, Paulik pulled his calf muscle, thereby having to withdraw from the final with injury, handing Heap a default win.
Heap would win a title on the court however, as he took 13-year-old Jonty Giesen (Manawatu) into the Open Men's Doubles final and upset the local team of Butters and Spring, winning the third tie breaker set 13-11.
There would be a local success in the eight-strong Open Women's singles tournament, as Leela Beattie defeated last year's 16 and Under champion Amy Kieboon of Wellington in straight sets 6-0 6-1.
Today and tomorrow the event continues with the 12 and 16 Year tournaments, although the cloud bursts made the hard courts too wet to use, as tournament organisers rescheduled doubles games to get through as many singles matches as possible.
"We're down six courts at the moment, thank goodness for the all weather courts," said Spring early this afternoon.
