30 January 2008

Many clubs will be without their top players in Soffe Cup tennis tomorrow as the NZ Lawn Tennis Championships are on in Hawera.
The closest match will be the Sandfords Manaia v Hareb Deken Oakura at Manaia.
Oakura are favoured and a similar scoreline to the first round, 11-5, is predicted.   In the top men's singles, Oakura will be missing their top player Josh Walden and either Aaron Hine or Graham Mitchell is expected to take his place and play Jason Mills; that is likely to be a close match.  The No 2 singles should feature Oakura's Steve Novak against Jordan Fleming.
In the women's singles Manaia's Nicole Koch would be favoured over Leah Fletcher and Alesha Ford over Sue Oldfield or Becky Bruckner.
Manaia could pick up wins in the No 4 mens' singles, Steve Lloyd beat Horri Hubbard in the first round.  They won both men' s doubles as well as the no 4 womens' singles. Irene Cruikshank beat Jill Barron but her opponent tomorrow may be Louise Brankin, and the no 2 women's doubles pairing, Cruikshank and Maree Gopperth prevailed in the first round.
 
AWE Huatoki will be missing their two top men, Jonno Ussher, Tristan Stayt and Lucy Barlow (who will be playing in Hawera) when they play  the combined side, Waiwaka/Stratford/Midhirst at Huatoki.  Their top two men are likely to be Jordan Stayt and Neil Bridgeman who will take on a likely pairing of Gavin Phelan and Michael O'Sullivan.  Phelan and Bridgeman are likely winners to make it 1-1.  In the women's singles, the likely match ups are Huatoki's Saori Han and Janice Taylor versus Krsytal Oakes and Jayden Bruce and the home team should win both those matches.  Fourth placed Huatoki should score a comfortable win against the combined side which has only scored one win; in the first round they won 12-4.
 
Competition leaders Central Finance Rotokare come off the bye and are at home to McDonald Real Estate Matapu.  It is not known whether either side will be missing players, if not the top men's singles matches will be Ben Pollard and Chris Popata against David White and Kyle Crowley.  Pollard narrowly beat White in the first round.  Rotokare's No 1 and 4, Kelly Toa and Maureen Whiting should prevail over Jen White and Ann Bridges.  Matapu's likely wins would be in the No 2 and 3 women's match with Helen Kelly hoping to repeat her first round win over Leith Atkins and Carolyn Koch favoured over Kate Laurenson.  In the first round Rotokare won 13-3.