Rotokare top of Soffe Cup table

Rotokare showed what a powerful team they are at the weekend, defeating Stratford 15-1 even without having their two best-ranked men.

One of the closest matches was between the number one men, where Blair Crowley, who has not known defeat this season, managed to recover after losing the first set to beat Callum Old 4-6 6-1 6-3.

In the women’s top match, Stratford’s young Nicole Kowalewski gave a tough battle to the experienced Karen Cranston before being defeated 6-1 3-6 7-5.

The only match Stratford won was the top doubles, where Old and David White displayed some great tennis to take down Crowley and Luke De Villiers. With this, Rotokare secured the leadership of the competition after completing the first round of matches.

Okaiawa also asserted their dominance at home, beating Pukekura with an impressive 15-1 score. Pukekura did not have the highest ranked male players for the tie and the locals made the most of this by taking out a win.

On the women’s side, the level shown by the Okaiawa team was remarkable, with the youthful squad of Jorja Symes, Abby Ross, Ruby Mcintyre, and Mckenna Norris beating high-level players such as Tenzin Joe and Lili Lay.

The talented Ross showed a great level of tennis and beat Lay 6-3 6-0. The only victory for Pukekura was the women’s doubles with Derryn Fleming and Joe beating Symes and Mcintyre.

With this result, Okaiawa continues to stalk Rotokare in the lead and proves to be a serious candidate for the title this season.

In the other match of the weekend, Huatoki hosted Waiwaka and defeated their visitors 10-6. The difference was marked by the return to the courts of Sophie Robertson and Jae Laurence who won all their matches.

Another highlight of the day were the victories of Huatoki’s young Sasha Maclean who by teaming up in doubles with Laurence and combines with Shane Douglas added two gold points for her team.

In the men’s matches, the points were equally distributed, the triumph of Matt Verry over David Innes was remarkable, after going down 2-5 in the third set. Verry made use of his great physical capacity to defeat his experienced rival 6-4 1-6 7-5.

The match for the Taranaki teams against Whanganui was postponed due to unstable weather conditions. A new date will be confirmed as soon as possible.