Quiet beginning for BP national titles

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33741, 14 January 1975, Page 24

Quiet beginning for BP national titles

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RAY CAIRNS)

When Robert Clarke was touring with a New Zculun tennis team for the first time, a Christchurch lad named l)a\i Neilson was three, Yesterday they met in the Bl nation, championships at Wilding Park, and Clarke recorded an astoi ishing victory in the second round of the men s singles.

What made it so unusual was not that Clarke, now aged 33 and virtually retired for two years and a half, should heat a j’outh of 17, even if the latter won the New Zealand under-19 doubles with Kerry Brading this year.

Clarke, a merchant banker for a firm of stockbrokers in London these days, was playing in only his second singles match since be badly injured an elbow at Wimbledon in 1972.

Specialists have recommended that Clarke play another sport, and he did try squash. Neilson was playing the first five-set match of his life, and it was the only match to go that distance on the first day of the championships yesterday. The pressure of the three hours play clearly told on the Christchurch youngster, and he was quite sure that the turning point was the break the two players took after the third set, when Neilson was leading 2-1. “It took me a while to get back into it, and that was disastrous against an old campaigner like Clarke,” Neilson said. “He showed his lack of experience by allowing me to get away in the fourth and off to a good start in the fifth set,” Clarke said. The match brought some excitement to what was otherwise a very quiet eight hours play. SEED BEATEN

The result of most significance was the failure at the first hurdle of Nina Bohm, the pretty Swedish 17-year-old who is eighth overseas

I seed and fondly remembered for reaching the final of the Canterbury championships last month. The heat, on that occasion, made an unfortunate impression on her; yesterday she iwas simply not nearly in good enough form to match Christine Matison, an Ausjtralian, who has been on tour tor seven months.

The bottom New Zealand sseed, Brenda Perry, also went i out in short time, but in I most other cases, the seeded 'players had few problems.

Robert Casey-of Australia, -dropped the first set to Bill I Thom but cruised through the rest, and Ralph Webster, another young Christchurch player, took the fourth- [ seeded Matti Timonen (Finland) to a tie-breaker in the third set. For a very short time it did seem that the top-seeded Mike Machette, of the United States, was in trouble against Mark Harrison, an Australian

on his final tour as a ' . * man. The call in the third -■ I was heard as 4-2 to He Ison, leading 1-0 in set' B [Machette went on to a I straight-sets victors The best performs <• against an overseas seed v by Nicky Boyne: h< t< IJoao Soares (Brazil) to (>4 I in each set. CARDIGAN O\ The most unusual sight .the back courts was not - I much Lilly Bell, of th< I i [States, resplendent in n blue shorts—garb which would ca is< club competitions. It was .rather, her noted opponent I from Australia, Wendy Turn bull, wearing a cardigat the high temperature' ' “She’s trying to lose som weight,” said a local figure If Miss Turnbull maintain i her form —a 6-0. 6-4 win—land her cardigan, she [surely be a sylph-fike figun on the centre-court on Suni day.