Nostalgic touch to tennis

Press, 5 September 1989, Page 48

Nostalgic touch to tennis

By DIANNA LESLIE The Rheineck national indoor tennis championship at the Renouf Centre in Wellington in October will have a touch of nostalgia, according to an official, Dermot Whelan. Speaking from Wellington yesterday, Mr Whelan was enthusiastic about the tournament that Christchurch could not land because it could not find a sponsor for the event “It will replace the old BP nationals before it went international,” he said. “It will be a home based tournament with most of our top players and will fill a gap as well as providing good match play in the lead up to the Air New Zealand league which starts in November.”

The tournament will run from October 19 to 23 and offers $lO,OOO in prizemoney ($lBOO to the winner of the singles). The 24 draw for the men’s and women’s competitions offers equal prizemoney, and while 19 players will gain direct entry, there will be one wildcard and four qualifiers. “The qualifying round will be limited to 16 and will be played on October 19 and the morning of the twentieth,” Mr Whelan said. Sponsorship was confirmed in the last few days and entries for the tournament are now open. Meanwhile Mr Whelan, the manager of the Wellington team which won the Air New Zealand league last

year, has been busy trying to replace Chris Lewis, who was in his team last year. “Chris has been training with Carl Iwe Steeb, who is ranked in the top 16 in the world for a year. He is from West Germany and is in their Davis Cup team which will play in the final against Sweden right in the middle of the league. So although Chris enjoyed the league last year, it’s very unlikely that he will be playing.”

There has also been speculation that Kelly Evernden, who has been billed to play for Hamilton in the league, could be trying to qualify for the Nabisco Masters doubles championship in London from December 4 to 10. This would rule him out of the

league — if he qualifies. The tournament is open to the top eight doubles pairs in the world and Evernden has a ranking of 18 with Todd Witsken (United States), who won the Canadian Open in Montreal recently. The ranking was released on August 21 and there are 24 tournaments before December. The No. 8 pairing has 1578 points while Evernden and Witsken have 763. They have three months to qualify and Evernden was plainly out to concentrate on his singles ranking at the start of this year so he cannot be ruled out Mr Whelan confirmed that Steve Guy, Belinda Cordwell, Jeremy Grub! and Graham Liddell have been confirmed for his side.