Southern Boys First Up win over Waikato

Southern Boys scored a great first up win over Waikato yesterday in the National 12s teams event in Timaru.Henry Hailes and Carlos Reid both had great wins at 3 and 4 singles Henry winning in two sets and Carlos in three.Waikato fought back and took the number 1 and 2 singles rubber with Darling going down to Manaia Hiha a repeat match from the Maindraw singles .Darling had set points in the first set but failed to convert and Hiha came away with the match 7/6 6/0.Lane went down to Brad Currie 6-1 6-4 .The tie stood after the singles 2 all with Waikato up a set going into the doubles.Southern have never put on a convincing doubles display until yesterday with both combinations winning Darling and Lane 6-1 6-1 over Hiha and Currie and Hailes and Reid 7-5 6-2 over Hamilton/Guilford,Hailes and Reid had lost to this pair in the tournament section earlier.A great start to the event ,Southern have a tough encounter first up this morning against Central. The girls lost 4-2 against Auckland and made a tactical blunder leaving Number 1 Anabell Ellis out of the singles play.

The National 12s winners where also decided yesterday in both boys and girls,Alexander Klintcharov defeated Manaia Hiha 6-2 6-0 in the boys final.Klintcherov the top seed certainly lived up to this dominating Hiha in all areas.The girls was somewhat closer with Claudia Williams defeating Shanni Temata-Frost 3-6 6-4 6-3 in a match riddled with unforced errors. Local top tennis players Gabrielle Grady and Hector Garcia umpired the matches, girls and boys respectively Hector a quiet time but in a match that needed a strong person in the chair for the girls final Gabrielle handled the match with composure ,of course Gabrielle is a former National 12s and 14s girls singles titlist.