Tapper tumbles out of championships

Press, 3 September 1986, Page 60

Tapper tumbles out of championships

By

DAVID LEGGAT

Two years ago, Chris Tapper came south and won the Canterbury badminton singles title. However, yesterday he was the first seeded player to be knocked out when the New Zealand championships began at the Skellerup Hall. Tapper, who was the seventh seed in the open men’s singles at the P.D.L.-sponsored championships, bowed out to another experienced campaigner, Nigel Skelt of Southland.

Skelt, having won the first game, 15-9, squandered a match point at 14-11 in the second, fluffing a backhand drop. Tapper battled back to force setting at 14-14.

Skelt dropped a second match point at 16-15, but Tapper immediately served too deep. Given a third bite, Skelt made no mistake with a firm drive to the back forehand corner.

Another seeded player, Nicole Vipond, almost came to grief against the seasoned Hutt Valley left-hander, Margaret Lee. Vipond last year’s top-ranked 16-year-old player in New Zealand has been seeded third for the open singles and for a time yesterday, the pressure to justify the national selectors faith in her ability rested uneasily on the slightly built Waitemata player’s shoulders.

Lee, never a player to

under-estimate, capitalised, on Vipond’s errors in the second game, and displayed some clever touches with her drop shots, to force a deciding set. Trailing 6-4, at the change of ends, Vipond returned to her first game tactics, keeping the shuttle alive and cutting her error rate. A smash gave Vipond a second match point, and with a deft drop shot, which Lee could only return into the net, she scraped through to the last eight. The other singles seeds got through their opening matches without too much difficulty although Jacob van Seim, the third-ranked man,

needed setting in the first game against Canterbury’s Mark Chambers. No Canterbury player did better than John Fletcher. Today he will advance to the quarterfinals if he can overcome the Danish player, Karsten Schiotz, who has spent the winter coaching in Southland. Results.— Open mixed doubles. — First round: K. Ross (Wang.) and S. Henare (A) beat M. Chambers and M. Williams (C), 15-7, 15-2; R. Murch and P. Geard (Marl.), beat M. Wehi (S), and R. Moreton (NS), 15-1, 15-99; K. Schiotz and A. Schiotz (S) beat P. Gulasekharam and B. Roberts (A), 15-9, 15-7; R.

Zimmerman and L. Mahoney (W) beat G. Cox (NS) and T. McAlister (A) by default

Second round: G. Robson and T. Whittaker (A) beat D. Rae (S) and J. Still (0), 15-5, 15-6; R. Whittle and R. MacFarlane (A) beat M. Porter and E. Henson (C), 15-11, 15-8; A. Welch and M. Lee (HV) beat C. Tapper and N. Vipond (Wait.), 15-9, 15-2; Ross and Henare beat Murch and Geard, 15-1, 15-4; Schiotz and Schiotz beat Zimmerman and Mahoney, 15-11; 15-8; J. van Seim (Wait.) and K. Phillips (Co), beat N. Skelt (S) and P. Lawrence (A), 15-5, 15-1; P. Skelt and L. Skelt (S) beat L. Haysom (A) and T. Perry (C), 15-5; 15-7; G. Stewart and L. Persson (A) beat D. Tester and R. Haley (C), 15-5, 15-12.

Singles results — Page 41