Senior roles for players

Press, 28 January 1988, Page 48

Senior roles for players

Alistair Hunt’s gritty victory in the New Zealand 16s boys’ tennis championship last week brought further cause for celebration when he was chosen yesterday in the Canterbury Wilding Shield team for the national inter-districts’ tennis tournament at Lower Hutt later this month. Hunt is the only newcomer to the men’s team and there will also be a new face in the women’s Nunneley Casket line-up. Amanda Trail, who won the national 16s girls’ title Ist week, has gained recognition at senior level. The Canterbury teams, in alphabetical order, are.— Men: Andrew Batie, Peter Hampton, Stephen Harley, Brett Hibbert, Hunt and Michael Mooney. Non-travelling reserve: Vern Aubrey. Women: Jane Howe, Robyn Hunt, Phillippa Lewthwaite, Judith Phillips, Trail. Non-travelling reserve: Carolyn Viggers. Although two of the Canterbury players who

have assisted the team to 11 Nunneley Casket wins in the last 14 years — Sally Moorfieid and Shirley Haig — are not available this year, Hunt and Phillips will continue their long associations with the event and Lewthwaite has also developed into a hardened casket campaigner. Apart from Hunt and second-year player, Batie, the men’s team has a familiar and solid look about it. Hampton, Harley, Hibbert and Mooney have fought many an inter-dis-trict duel and Hampton has twice captained Canterbury teams to win the Wilding Shield. Batie, beaten by Hunt in the quarter-finals of the New Zealand under-18 championship in Auckland last month when seeded first, later redeemed himself at the Canterbury age group tournament by beating the winner of that national title, Troy Tipene, of Auckland, in a three-set final.