Perfect tennis conditions at the Scenic Circle Hotels Tennis Centre, Wilding Park, Christchurch for round 2 of the 16s national Teams Event. Just cool enough for the players and a little wind to keep the spectators from getting too comfortable. This encouraged the players to spend a good deal longer on court than tournament organisers would have liked.
Canterbury Boys and Girls teams liking the home conditions so much they decided to be last to finish with the second round due to start at 2pm, the Canterbury Girls doubles finished about 3 hours after that and the boys weren’t much before them. Unfortunately for the Canterbury Girls team they stumbled against Northern losing two of their singles in 3 sets and their only singles success came when Jenny Blackburne had a win over Tiffany Wheelock also in 3 sets. Needing to win both doubles they weren’t able to, losing both in tight first sets and eventually losing the tie 5-1. After a great struggle the Canterbury Boys eventually prevailed over their Southern Neighbours 4-2.
The expected major clash in the boy’s second round was between Northern and Waikato-Bays. Both teams have highly rated players with lots of finesse and firepower. In the end Northern’s win was much easier than most expected, running away with the tie 5 – 1, only loosing one doubles match. Northern are now shaping up to be the team to beat, and their clash with Auckland on Thursday could well be the clash of the unbeaten titans. Auckland easily accounted for Central 5-1 in a somewhat one-sided tie.
In the other girls matches Number 1 seeds Waikato-Bays crushed Central 6-0 and Auckland easily disposed of Southern 6-0, although Libby Scott really took her match to Imogen Golder, eventually loosing the first set 7-5. That loss seemed to take the wind from Libby’s sails, loosing the second set 6-2.
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