Round five matched the unbeaten teams in both the boys and Girls competitions. In the girls competitions top seeds Waikato-Bays took on Auckland. Rosie Bird scored points for Waikato winning 6-2, 6-2 over Monica Chen before Auckland's Alexia Barritt fought out a 3 set epic with Kate Parker eventually winning 2-6, 6-1, 6-3. Imogen Golder (Auck) then beat Dana Gray (6-3, 6-3) and Katarina Hunia also beat Heidi Stewart with relative ease (6-1, 6-4). This meant Auckland went into the doubles 3-1 up. So it was all on in the doubles. Auckland had to win at least one doubles match. Waikato-Bays won the first doubles easily 6-1, 6-0. Thus the tension rose as the last doubles match decided the competition. Auckland eventually prevailed 6-4, 6-2 capping off a great girls competition.
And just when the crowds heartbeat recovered from the girls ‘final’, on came the match of the tournament. Auckland boys verses their Northern neighbours. Northern started the competition 2 points ahead, but fittingly the match was decided on court. Adam Lee (Auck) easily disposed of Chester Espie 6-0, 6-1, a score that gave no indication to what was to come. Matt Alexander (Northern) then fought back from 1 set down to avenge his loss to David Clifford in the individual competitions. Matt eventually won 3-6, 6-4, 6-3. The match was marked with long and intense base line battles and some quite brilliant court coverage. One all.
Next Anton Bettink accounted for Takuma Ohashi in two sets (7-6), 6-2 with Takuma having two set points in the first set. Up stepped the Auckland captain Jamie Eccelton needing to beat the higher ranked Northern number 1 Marco Commuzzo. Jamie played as if his life, and the tie, depended on it. What a consummate performance, beating Marco 6-2, 6-3. Two all.
On to the doubles. Marco and Matt (Northern) took out the first doubles 6-3,0-6,7/6 (10-4) in the super tie. A long and intense match that drew the crowd in for the decider. And what a match the last doubles was. When Auckland’s Adam Lee and David Clifford finally took the third set super tie breaker 10-7 the crowd erupted and the players collapsed. Auckland had won the tournament and the large crowd were rapt with what they had seen.
Final Points Standings
Boys - Auckland 33, Northern 33, Waikato-Bays 25, Central 16, Canterbury 10, Southern 3
Girls – Auckland 37, Waikato-Bays 31, Northern 24, Southern 14, Canterbury 12, Central 2
No comments:
Post a Comment