Canterbury has leading tennis contenders

Press, 18 December 1976, Page 20

Canterbury has leading tennis contenders

By

JOHN BROOKS

Canterbury’s dominance of teen-age tennis should be reflected in the membership of the New Zealand junior teams for the Linton and Wilson Cup series in Australia next month. The three boys and three girls to challenge teams from the Australian states on New Zealand’s behalf will be chosen by the national selectors at the end of the Qantas national junior championships in Auckland on Christmas eve.

Last summer Canterbury supplied the entire Linton Cup (boys) team, with Peter Hampton, Michael Mooney and Stephen Harley winning the three places. And Sally Chapman, the leading Canterbury girl, was a controversial omission from the. Wilson Cup side. This season Hampton is with the seniors, but Mooney and Harley seem certain to retain their places, and the vacancy might well be filled by another Canterbury player, Breit Hibbert. There were no arguments about Miss Chapman’s selection this time.

Mooney, Harley and Hibbert have been locked in close combat at Wilding Park in recent weeks.

In the light of their succession of tight matches, it was surprising that the Auckland association's committee was moved to place so much daylight between Mooney and Harley in the seedings for the Auckland junior tournament, which is scheduled to end today. Mooney was seeded first, but Harley was no higher Than fifth; Hibbert was one place ahead of him.

In both the New Zealand and Canterbury junior tournaments last season, Mooney went down in three" sets to Hampton after being on the brink of success. They met in the semi-finals of the Canterbury event and the final of the national contest. Harley was a semi-finalist on both occasions, and Hibbert was

eliminated by Hampton in the national quarter-finals. The rivalry has continued this season. Harley has beaten Mooney twice, but lost twice to Hibbert and twice to Hampton. Mooney has had a win and a loss in matches against Hampton, and has gone down to Hibbert. All this cut and thrust

will mean that the Canterbury contenders for the Linton Cup side are well prepared to meet the challenges bf their leading rivals, Glen Ryder (Auck-

land) and Michael-Elley (Wellington) in the national singles next week. Miss Chapman was triumphant in the Canterbury girls’ singles championship last season — she beat the two national representatives from Waikato, Sheryl Tebbutt

and Helen Harris in the process — but she faltered in the national singles a week later. Ironically, her conqueror was her doubles partner, Jenny Sim. who had given little indication that she could achieve the feat. Subsequently, Misses Chapman and Sim beat Misses Tebbutt and Harris to win the national doubles. But Miss Chapman’s shock singles defeat must have counted against her.

This season the petite Christchurch girl has breezed through her assignments with an air of assurance. She is unbeaten in inter-club matches, with wins against Christine Newton and Judith Phillips included, and was victorious in the Trans Tours series, the Tekau Knitwear tournament and the Puma national invitation contest. In the Puma event, she beat Gaye Robinson (Otago), who was seeded first for the Auckland junior championships, with the loss of a mere one game in the singles final.

Miss Chapman’s only loss this season has been to the former national

champion, Robyn Hunt, after a tough three-set match which went to 7-5 in the third. The Linton and Wilson cup series will be played in Adelaide from January 9-23. In the last week of the month, Canterbury will defend the Rothmans cups in both the boys’ and girls’ sections at Whangarei.

The province has two chances of winning each trophy. The two boys’ and two girls’ sides it entered in the South Island eliminations all qualified for the national finals.