Elimination Matches In Senior Tennis Today

Press, Volume C, Issue 29656, 28 October 1961, Page 9

Elimination Matches In Senior Tennis Today

A GAIN an elimination contest has been found necessary before the senior men’s tennis teams can begin the inter-club competition. This happened last year with the men when the nine entries had to be reduced to the limit of eight. Last year the senior women’s competition received the exact eight entries but this year an elimination contest will be needed in this too for there are nine These elimination contests will be played on the United club’s grass courts this morning between Opawa and St. Albans in the men’s and Shirley and Elmwood in the women’s. The competition proper will then be able to begin as scheduled next week. St. Albans was in the competition for a season in 195960 but finished bottom, so when Edgeware was a new entry in the competition last season they played an elimination match which Edgeware won and so went into the competition. Of the St Albans team the top man, B Judge, went to the United senior team and the rest went into the senior reserve competition.

Tbe team for this year has been named as B. Judge, V. Price. L Laby and M. O'Malley. When Judge led the team in 1990-40 he had a fine record of five wins out of six singles, his only loss being to the North Linwood top man, C. W. Pritchard. Last season he wort three of four singles in a lower position for United and was ranked eighth in Canterbury at the end of the season.

Price. Laby and O'Malley were all members of the St. Albans senior reserve team which won section I of that competition but lost the final to North Linwood 11. The other members of the senior reserve side, L. Watkins, has gone to the Elmwood senior team this season.

Although Opawa -von only one contest last season it was not the only team to do so. Elmwood also finished with only one point, and actually lost to Opawa. but it won 13 individual matches and 29 to Opawa’s 11 won and 31 lost. This time the Opawa team is named as G. Moss, R Blunt, S. F. Clarke and P Boatwood, all of whom played for the team last season. Moss and Clarke the most. It is not so many years since Opawa was the leading team in the competition. If Opawa loses to St Albans today the most interesting outcome would be to which team Mom would

go. His services as one of the three leading players in the province would be in demand.

Shirley was the only team which did not gain a point in the women’s competition last season and so has to accept the challenge of the new team, Elmwood, today. The Last time Elmwood was in the competition was 1957-58 It finished fourth of the eight teams that season, in the early part of which it had the then fourth New Zealand player. Miss B. Nelson, in the team.

The Shirley entry this season is Misses J. Hatch, J. Cusdin, E. Reaston and Mrs P. Sanders. Miss Hatch last season played for United but the other three were in the Shirley team which not only

did not win a point but won only three individual matches, two singles and a doubles in the whole season. The new Elmwood team comprises Misses S. Rich, J. Preston, V. Tucker and C. Richmond. Last season, Miss Rich, one of Canterbury’s most promising juniors for some time and a senior representative, played for the Fendalton senior women’s team. The rest are new to the senior competition. Miss Tucker was a member of the Elmwood first grade team, runner-up in that competition.

In a similar way to the interest in Moss in the men’s result, the interest in the women’s result would be where Miss Rich would go if Elmwood lost today.