19 March 2005
Sandfords Manaia take a
bow! They etched their name in Taranaki tennis history at Manaia on
Saturday, beating Nag 'n' Noggin' Rotokare 14 - 2 to win the Soffe Cup for
the sixth successive year.
They have been the most
dominant club in the Soffe Cup competition for about 15 years, since Huatoki
and Pukekura reigned supreme.
The top men and lower
order women had very little trouble with their singles, dropping only eight
games in their five matches.
Irene Cruikshank kept
her unbeaten singles record for the year beating Kane Murakami 6-1, 6-0.
Team Captain Aliaster
Murdoch,at No 4, won a marathon singles match against Chris Pulford.with the
third set tie-breaker going his way. He won 4-6, 7-5, 7-6.
The other tight singles
was the No 1 womens' where Rotokare's Leith Atkins won the first set 6-3.
Manaia 's Nicole Koch fought back to take the second set 6-2, then went on
to take the third set tie-breaker 7-3.
Rotokare's only singles
win was the No 3 men's with Jonathan Ussher beating Cameron Koch in a tough
match, 6-0, 4-6, 7-6.
All but two of the
doubles were easy wins to Manaia. Rotokare captured the No 2 mens
doubles with Mike Roberts and Pulford defeating Koch and Murdoch 6-4, 6-2.
Murdoch and Cruikshank held on to win the tiebreak and so come out the
winners in their combines 9-8 against Pulford and Cheryl Lawrence.