MITCHELL UPSETS TENNIS CALCULATIONS

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31316, 11 March 1967, Page 11

MITCHELL UPSETS TENNIS CALCULATIONS

rrHE national men’s tennis -*■ rankings were at no time likely to be an easy job for the selectors this year, but events in the last two weeks have made the task seem even more difficult The cause of the trouble is the 18-year-old Canterbury top man, J. W. Mitchell.

Because he has not been available for the Davis Cup team, Mitchell has been cast from the thoughts of some when there has been talk of B. E. Fairlie, O. Parun and K. Woolcott In spite of his dedication to an academic career which cuts his tennis playing time to much less than theirs, he is still more than with them. Last year Fairlie was on the ranking list at eighth, Parun at ninth. This year, with his spectacular progress and the withdrawal of some of the older players. Fairlie has reached the top of New Zealand tennis and must be assured of the top ranking, in spite of a recent loss to J. H. Lockington. Beaten by Parun in the final of the South Island championships at Nelson, and again in the Wills international at Wellington, Hawkes seems likely to take the second position as a semi-finalist in the national and Auckland invitation tournaments and winner of the Auckland and Canterbury titles. On this basis Parun, with his two wins over Hawkes to one loss, would appear to be his rival for the place. This is where Mitchell might have upset calculations. Two years younger than Parun, but ahead of him in the Linton Cup team of 1965-66, Mitchell had appeared to drop behind him but he has now beaten him decisively twice in the last two weeks. In the Canterbury championships, Mitchell won their quarterfinal, 8-10, 6-4, 6-2, and in

the Wilding Shield challenge last week-end, Mitchell won, 6-2, 3-6, 6-4. At the same time, Mitchell has been beaten comfortably by Hawkes in each contest so that Paran’s two wins over Hawkes may keep him well up the ladder. Then there will still be the difficulty of placing Mitchell in the next batch of players, like Lockington, Souter, Clarke and Woolcott.

Mitchell’s singles losses at the national championships were to Fairlie in both senior and under-19, and together they reached both the North Island and national doubles finals. So what Mitchell’s two wins over Paran do show is that under the policy of young teams and if he had been available, Mitchell could have been New Zealand’s second Davis Cup player.