Good year for Lewis

Press, 4 March 1982, Page 18

Good year for Lewis

An updated world ranking of thirty-third for Chris Lewis has given the New Zealand team a big psychological advantage for the Davis Cup tie against Spain this week. This is the highest Lewis has soared in A.T.P. rankings, and it is 30 places ahead of the best Spaniard, Jose Lopez Maeso. According to figures received last week, Lewis has amassed 470 points from 26 tournaments in singles alone. Lewis cemented his place as New Zealand’s top player with a richly rewarding year in 1981. In the course of winning a reported $125,000 for the 12 months, he reached the finals of four major tournaments, at Munich, the A.T.P. championships in Ohio, the German indoor championship, and the Nivea tournament in Brisbane. In this he lost to his rival from the Winfield Classic final at Wilding Park, Mark Edmondson, whom he had earlier defeated in the French Open.

Several of the giants of world tennis found Lewis a pugnacious rival last year. The New Zealander took a set from the amazingly successful Czech, Ivan Lendl, in losing the final of the German indoors, and forced Jimmy Connors to two tiebreakers at Wimbledon. In the A.T.P. final he lost, 3-6, 46, to John McEnroe, after earlier eliminating Stan Smith and John Sadri. In Australia, Lewis had wins over the colourful Rumanian, Hie Nastase, and the accomplished Australian, John Alexander. He lost to Tim Wilkisoh (United States) in the New South Wales Open final and to the eventual winner, Johan Kriek (South Africa), in the Australian Open. Back home this year, Lewis played in the Benson and Hedges tournament in Auckland, but was put out of the singles by his Davis Cup colleague, Russell Simpson, now ranked ninety-second in the world. Benefitting from this splendid success, Simp-

son strode on to the final, in which he became another Wilkison victim.

Last year Simpson repeated his feat of the previous season in winning the Dunlop Masters title in Nagoya, Japan, beating Australia’s Charlie Fancutt in the final. He won the doubles final as well. At .Wimbledon the tall Aucklander made good progress until he struck Kriek, but . he went on to beat Stan Smith in the Benson and Hedges tournament at Wembley. He had to wait a long time for his first important singles match in a Davis Cup tie, but he handled it well, beating the Japanese No. 1, Jun Kamiwazumi, in straight sets at Wilding Park. Last year he gave New Zealand its only success against Britain by beating Jonathan Smith in the final singles. His older brother, Jeffrey, is back in the New Zealand cup team after a break of seven years. After a long spell as coach in. the United

States, Jeff Simpson returned to tournament tennis 18 months ago and had a solid . season in the Penn circuit in America before returning for the Air New Zealand circuit.

He won the singles title at Christchurch and the doubles finals at North Shore (with Russell), Dunedin and Christchurch, and was runner-up in the national doubles, with his Texas partner, Jai Dilouie. A fine doubles player in particular, Simpson was ranked third in New Zealand, behind Onny Parun and Brian Fairlie, before going to the United States. His ambition is to cut his world ranking to below the 200mark; he already has a mark of 140 in doubles.

Onny Parun is still going strongly, as he proved by winning the two big singles titles of the domestic season, the BP New Zealand championship and the Air New Zealand Masters.

Christchurch has been a happy hunting ground for Parun. He won the inaugural Masters title at Wilding Park last season, captured one of his six national singles crowns there, and achieved an outstanding double by downing Mark Edmondson and John Alexander in the cup tie against Australia in 1979.