Club switch for Harris

Press, 23 October 1980, Page 30

Club switch for Harris

By

JOHN BROOKS

One of the personalities of Canterbury tennis, Gary Harris, is to return to the senior competition after a season’s break — but not in the familiar gold shirt of Elmwood. When the 1980-81 B.N.Z. championship begins at Wilding Park on Saturday, Harris will be wielding his racket for Edgeware against the strong United side. This represents a big break in allegiance to Elmwood for Harris, who

helped the club’s senior side win the championship for six consecutive years. But he said yesterday that he was making the switch without any acrimony on either side. “I was in two minds whether I would play at all this season after being out for a year because of a back injury,” he said. “But in contemplating a return I felt it would be unfair to break up a combination that became established last season and went on to win the title.

“In any case,” he chuckled, “there was the question of whether I could

get back into the team anyway.” Harris was invited to link up with an Edgeware team which was effectively third in a field of eight last season. The club’s top player, Michael Mooney, is in Germany on a two-year coaching contract, and his brother, Terry, has heavy coaching commitments in the Canterbury area and is . unlikely to play.

The ebullient Harris said there were no hard feelings in the Elmwood club over his departure. One of his former doubles partners, Warren Edgecumbe, still

plays for Elmwood, and will conceivably be one of his singles opponents this season.

“I won’t be in deadly form after a season away from tennis,” Harris said, “but I did play squash in division two all winter.”

Harris’s last Canterbury ranking was twelfth,, in 1977-78, a season in which he won 11 of his 13 interclub singles. Two years, earlier he went through the entire competition unbeaten, and his career success rate is among the highest of contemporary players.