Busby gets revenge

Press, 9 January 1978, Page 22

Busby gets revenge

PA Blenheim Last year’s beaten top seed in the South Island tennis open Glen Busby, took revenge at. this year’s tournament with an easy victory in the men’s singles

final at Pollard Park, Bien-’ heim yesterday. Busby, from Melbourne, lost only four games in defeating the fourth seed, Ken Wurtz (Albury, N.S.W.), 6-3, 6-1. The third seed, Busby made a tentative start to the tournament but improved dramatically by the semi-finals to hand out a 6-2, 6-1 thrashing to the top seed, Dennis Gibson (San Francisco,) who looked completely out of touch and lacked concentration.

In the other semi-final Wurtz halted the giant-kill-ing run of Timaru’s Craig Workman. After losing the first set, 6-3, the unseeded Workman made a great recovery to take a 5-3 lead in the second. Wurtz broke back, however, and the set went into a tie-breaker, which he won, 7-4, to take the match. Workman, partnered by Gibson, was also unseeded in the men’s doubles but the two played outstanding tennis to reach the final against the top-seeded Busby and Paul Russell (Melbourne). In a closely-fought match, Russell and Busby broke their opponents’ service once in each set to win 6-4, 7-5. Canterbury’s Robyn Hunt, the beaten finalist in last year’s South Island open, demolished all her opposition this year in the

women’s singles. Carol Draper (Melbourne) had no answer to Hunt’s powerful service in their final and the Canterbury player powered to an easy 6-1, 6-4 victory. Lea Milne (Southland) gave Hunt her toughest opposition in the semi-final when she took the first set, 6-3. In the next two sets, though, Milne could only win three games as Hunt took a 3-6, 6-2, 6-1 win. In the other semi-final Draper made mincemeat of

Canterbury’s Judy Phillips, 6-1, 6-3, but Phillips gained her revenge in the women’s doubles together with Anne Pooley (Auckland). They beat Draper and Debbie Scott (Hutt Valley) in the semi-final of the women's doubles 6-3, 6-3. The top seeds, Hunt and Vickie Rogers (Melbourne) beat Milne and Shirley Thomson (Southland), 6-3, 6-1, in the other semi-final but lost the final to Phillips and Pooley, 6-7, 4-6. Two tie-breakers were needed to decide the final of the mixed doubles between the Melbourne pair of Glenn Busby and Carol Draper and Ivan Stoll (Albury, N.S.W.) and Robyn Hunt (Canterbury). Busby became a triple title-holder when he and Draper beat their fellow countrymen, 7-6, 7-6. In the men’s plate final

Stephen Smith (Auckland) beat John Alexander (Otago), 7-6, 2-6, 6-2, and in the women’s plate final Michelle Stewart (Adelaide) beat Vickie Rogers (Melbourne) 6-4, 4-6, 6-2.