4 Feb 2023

Huatoki managed to climb to fourth place on the Soffe Cup points table after a convincing win 12-4 against Waiwaka.  Huatoki’s strength came from the women’s side winning all singles and doubles matches.  The top player Maria Spurdle showed a high level of tennis beating Shuna Giles 6-3 6-3, Jacqui Alexander, a new player for Huatoki, beat Kim Carr 6-1 6-0, proving to be a great asset to the team.  Huatoki’s Hannah Siffleet and Huhana Whautere also got important wins.  From the top men, Alastair Nairn fought hard to beat the consistent Nick Creery in three sets 2-6 7-6 7-6.  Waiwaka’s wins included Nadav Golan, a new strong player who beat Dave Innes in straight sets 6-1 6-1.  Huatoki’s Joshua Wormald got an impressive win over Matt Verry 6-3 6-3.  The last men's singles went Waiwaka’s way after Will Gordon beat Shane Douglas in three sets 7-6 5-7 6-1.  

At the Rotokare courts, Stratford had a tough day at the office as the locals proved to be stronger than their visitors.  From the Men’s side, Will Roberts, Caleb Fleming, Luke De Villers and Ollie Kerr all managed to take out their matches against Stratford's Callum Old, David White, Ross Slinger and Grant Kite.  The highlight was the match between Will Roberts and Callum Old where Old had a strong start in the first set, winning 4-6, however, Roberts turned it around resulting in a 4-6, 6-0 6-2 win.  From the women’s side, the talented Nicole Kowalewski took out the only win for Stratford throughout the fixture, beating Tania Atkinson 6-2 6-4. 

The other fixture of the day was between Pukekura and Okaiawa.  Okaiawa took 10 out of the 16 matches, leaving New Plymouth with an important win.  Hamish Mead showed off his talent to beat Jordan Whittleston 6-0 6-3 in the only men’s singles win for Okaiawa.  An upset happened when Ronan Avery beat Grant Morris in straight sets 6-3 6-2.  On the women’s side, Okaiawa was too strong.  A highlighted match was between Pukekura’s Greer Upson and Ruby McIntyre.  Upson played a very good first set against the talented McIntyre, however, ended up losing 7-5 6-0. 

This leaves the points table with Rotokare on top with 130.5 points taking some distance from Okaiawa that has 125 points, Pukekura follows with 94.5, Huatoki now has 70.5 points, Stratford 67.5 and Waiwaka 44.