Budding tennis aces win teams event
The future looks bright for Southland tennis.
The Southland tennis team won the under-16 pre-Christmas Southern Districts Event in Dunedin recently on the back of some excellent contributions from all eight players and management, with hard fought victories over Otago, North Otago and South Canterbury.
Southland edged Otago in a crucial result on countback 15-14 on sets, after scores were locked at 6-6 following the eight singles, two doubles and two mixed doubles matches. The round one clash went down to the wire, with Southland mixed doubles pairing of No.4 boy Ben Wylie and No.2 girl Jess Willans claiming a tight win over their Otago rivals 7-5 4-6 12-10 to give Southland the result.
‘‘Everybody in that team performed to the best of their ability and you cannot isolate one individual as being a genius, it is totally a team constructed result,’’ Southland coach Peter White said.
‘‘The way I see it, is that it is the beauty of team tennis, it is a very individual sport so when kids can come together in a team like that, four boys and four girls, it creates a unity you can’t buy that, it is so good.’’
‘‘The whole weekend was about massive contribution from every member of that team and management staff, it was awesome because of that.’’
The Southland team of Claudia Smith, Willans, Bianca Popham, Maggie Nicholson, Tim Willans, Finn Holden, Kade Wilson and Wylie accounted for North Otago 8-4 in their second tie, setting up an exciting final tie against South Canterbury.
Wylie and Willans came to the party again against South Canterbury for a crucial victory, to give Southland a 7-5 win and confirm their top spot.
‘‘That same doubles pairing, we were 6-5 up against South Canterbury, we needed to win that to win the tie, and those two people again came up with the goods,’’ he said.
The Southland under-10, under-12 and under-14 teams will compete against their Southern Districts opponents in November, while all four Southland age-groups will compete against Southern Districts teams early in 2018.