Byers powers to first Otago senior title

IT seems unlikely Charlie Byers’ first title will be her last.

Rising local Byers (16) won her maiden senior women’s title at the Otago Indoor Open at the weekend.

Playing against Otago teammate Ayesha Horley in the final, Byers’ groundstroke game was too much to handle as she powered to a 62, 61 victory.

It continued a good run for

Byers, who won the doubles title at the under16 indoor national tournament earlier this month.

Earlier in the women’s draw, Horley had to battle through the craft of Oamaru’s Belinda Hirst.

In one of the matches of the tournament, Horley won 62, 67, 63.

On the men’s side of the draw,

Aucklandbased coach Ryan Eggers, formerly of Otago, ground his way to the singles title.

Playing against Wellingtonian Thomas Dai, who is studying in Dunedin, Eggers was at the mercy of Dai’s crunching backhands, the former winning the first set 64.

However, momentum started to swing as Eggers found his consistency early in the second set.

After many lengthy exchanges, Eggers ran away in the second and third sets, winning them 62, 61. The win gave Eggers an open trophy for the first time since 2018, having gone 09 in finals since his victory at the Southland Open.

Both Eggers and Dai had to get through tough semifinal matches against Tim Willans (Southland) and Ben Smith (Canterbury) respectively.

Willans’ clean ball striking was putting Eggers under immense pressure, as the latter fended off a set point in the first set. However, Eggers’ consistency pulled him through, winning 76, 64.

The matchup between Dai and Smith was a close encounter, the former edging it 75, 64.

In the women’s doubles, Horley joined forces with Jessie Stevenson to take on Hirst and Angela Fitzgerald in the final.

In a seesaw affair, Hirst and

Fitzgerald raced out to a 61 lead. As the match wore on, Horley and Stevenson were able to find their groove, claiming the second set and match tiebreak 64, 108.

For the men’s doubles, Thomas Hartono and Paddy Ou clinched a close match against Eggers and Gavin Mockford 64, 57, 107. With very little separating the teams, Hartono hit some clutch serves to seal victory.

Earlier, Eggers and Mockford sneaked through against the bigserving duo of Jack Warner and Mat Mccutcheon 67, 61, 108.