Ajeet Rai hangs on to Open honours
Ajeet Rai of Taranaki made a successful defence of the open singles and doubles titles in his favourite tournament at the NZ Lawn Tennis Championships/Taranaki Open completed on Saturday at Hawera.
Rai met Jaden Grinter of Wellington in the final and ran out a comfortable winner 6-2 6-2. Both players confined the majority of the match on the baseline with many hard-hitting exchanges. The turning point in both sets were the only two long service games.
In the third game of the first set, Rai broke Grinter in a 6-deuce game and then broke again in the seventh game of the first set.
In the second set, Grinter was again broken in the third game and although he held serve in the fifth game, after 11 deuces, the effort appeared to take its toll and he was again broken in the seventh game to leave Rai to serve out
Rai now has five consecutive Taranaki Open singles titles and is tied for the number of singles titles.
the match.
Earlier Rai had disposed of Andrew Shand of Hawkes Bay, 6-1 6-0 whilst Grinter was just as clinical over Connor Williamson of Auckland. 6-3 6-0. Rai now has five consecutive Taranaki Open singles titles and is tied for the overall number of singles titles with A.G. Wallace (1906-1922) and Frayne Bloor (1993-2009).
Williamson partnered with Rai to take out the Open doubles title over Grinter/Jayden Harrison of Taranaki, 6-3 6-4. Grinter had earlier in the day got a Taranaki Open title when he and partner Catherine Blom of Taranaki won the Open combined doubles over Jono Spring/Megan Small of Manawatu, 6-1 6-4.
Manawatu’s Hannah Sutherland-Smith won the Open Ladies singles title after defeating Megan Small 6-1 6-2.
The other NZ Lawn Tennis Championship titles went to Michael Erb (Men’s B singles), Len Adamson (Men’s Rosebowl), Naomi Burwell (Ladies B singles) and Carly Chang (Ladies Rosebowl).
- Supplied by Andrew Baylis