Elmwood given fright by North Linwood
North Linwood was within an ace of achieving the impossible In the B.N.Z. men’s senior tennis competition at Wilding Park on Saturday.
It had to achieve a clean sweep of six rubbers against Elmwood to beat that side for a place in the championship grand final next month. But a couple of match points eluded North Linwood’s anxious grasp in the doubles, and Elmwood, a side with a tradition of fighting and surviving, climbed back on court to share the tnatches.
North Linwood still won, on a count-back of sets, but this was Insufficient to halt Elmwood’s progress to the grand final. In this it will meet the title-holder, United, which crushed the opposition in its section of the competition. United ended section play with 96 points, a long way ahead of its closest rival, Edgeware, on 68. The other sides were Avonside, 62, and Woolston, 26. In section two Elmwood’s 79 placed it five points clear of North Linwood, 74. Then came Shirley, 49, and Sumner, 21. The doubles drama which had such a bearing on the North Linwood—Elmwood game occurred when Jim Martin and Mike Purcell, a new combination for North Linwood, were leading Elmwood's experienced Warren Edgecumbe and Ken Elliott. Martin and Purcell were a set up and ahead by 5-2 in the second and 40-15 on Martin’s serve. One more juicy hit would have snuffed out Elmwood’s chances, for Steve Harley and ' Barry Finch had won the other doubles for North Linwood. But Elliott and Edgecumbe survived their crisis, and crept up to win the second set in a tie-
breaker — a prelude to winning the third set and match. It will be a matter for conjecture for a long time whether North Linwood could have carried on to win all four singles with the impetus of two doubles successes behind the side. Certainly, Harley beat Rhett Mason in the top singles, and Martin won comfortably against Elliott at No. 2. Purcell was a set up against Richard Dalman and Finch enjoyed a similar advantage over Edgecumbe, but these two matches slipped away from North Linwood. The impertur. bable Edgecumbe chased and retrieved faithfully as Finch fell into error, while Dalman, a very talented player inclined to be self-critical in his search for perfection, discovered greater consistency to peg back the lusty strokes of Purcell. United confirmed its superiority in section one by beating its nearest rival. Edgeware, but not before Michael Mooney had brought off a spectacular recovery against United’s Hugh Robinson in the top singles. United was in the ascendancy by this stage, with Ralph Webster and Neil Pattinson gaining an expected doubles win and the rural section of the side, Robinson and Martin Beaumont, scoring an unexpected success against the proficient Mooney and Barry Knight. The calm and methodical Robinson outmanoeuvred Mooney in the first set, but at 4-4 in the second the Edgeware No. 1 produced four sizzling backhands when in a trailing position to gain the upper hand. He continued in this competitive vein to win in the third set, after a match of considerable appeal. Webster and Beaumont made United’s win secure, but Pattinson found the ebullient Knight too much of a handful.
Avonside gained its expected win against Woolston, after one big blow to its self-esteem. The top doubles combination of Peter Hampton — a national doubles champion — and Marty Searle lost to the Chapman brothers, Alistair and Douglas, through some inattention by the Avonside men and dogged resistence by the Chapmans. Hampton and Searle won the second set with the loss of only one game, but were shaded in tie-breakers in the other two. Hampton, Searle and Deane McKinnell produced some rich strokes here and there in winning their singles, but Richard Wilding crumbled to the youthful Alan Adair. The bottom-placed Sumner side made a bold bid to beat Shirley, and failed by only eight games. Ryan McCutheon made an epic fighting stand to turn a potential loss to Russell Pyne into victory, and David Blackwell played attractively to gain singles and doubles successes.
But David Haworth, resplendant in his floppy sun hat, made every shot count for Shirley and
a dynamic Brett Hibbert did n: allow a hapless Paul Beumelbu.. one game in the top singles. Results were:— SECTION ONE United 4, Edgeware 2 H. Robinson lost to M. Mooney. 6-2, 4-6, 4-6. R. D. Webster beat S. Agar, 7-5, 6-3; N. Pattinson lost to B. T. Knight, 3-6, 3-6; M. Beaumont beat T. J. Mooney, 7-5, 6-2. Robinson and Beaumont beat M. Mooney and Knight, 6-7, 6-3, 6-2; Webster and Pattinson beat T. Mooney and Agar, 7-6, 6-2. Avonside 4, Woolston 2 P. D. Hampton beat A. Chapman, 6-3, 6-1; M. Searle beat C. A. Hunt, 7-6, 6-3; D. McKinnel beat D. Chapman, 7-6, 6-4; R. J. Wilding lost to A. Adair, 4-6, 1-6. Searle and Hampton lost to D. and A. Chapman, 6-7, 6-1, 6-7; McKinnel and Wilding beat Hunt and Adair, 3-6, 7-5, 6-0. SECTION TWO North Linwood 9 sets, Elmwood 6 S. Harley beat R. Mason, 7-5, 6-3; J. P. Martin beat K. H. Elliott, 6-3, 6-2; M. J. Purcell lost to R. Dalman, 6-3, 2-6, 3-6; B. Finch lost to W. Edgecumbe 6-1, 3-6, 4-6. Harley and Finch beat Mason and Dalman, 7-6, 6-3; Purcell and Martin lost to Elliott and Edgecumbe, 6-4, 6-7, 3-6. Shirley 69 games, Sumner 61 B. Hibbert beat P. Beumelburg, 6-0, 6-0; R. Pyne lost to R. M. McCutcheon, 5-7, 6-3, ‘l-6; M. Wilson lost to D. L. Blackwell, 4-6, 2-6; D. W. Haworth beat G. Hayes, 6-1, 7-6. Hibbert and Haworth beat McCutcheon and Beumelburg, 6-7, 6-1, 7-6; Pyne and Wilson lost to Blackwell and Hayes, 2-6, 2-6.
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