Soffe Cup Produces Exciting Results

Soffe Cup’s penultimate round before Christmas produced some exciting results.  Rotokare were away at Pukekura and managed to topple Pukekura, Inglewood travelled away and recorded their first win of the season with an emphatic victory over Stratford and Oakura snuck away with a victory at Huatoki.
 

Rotokare managed to produce a hard fought win over Pukekura on a count back.  The nature of the win was epitomised by the determined nature of Rotokare’s Emma Roberts’ victory over Nicole Kowalewski.  Both players are renowned for their steady play and ability to hang in and draw errors from the opposition.  Usually, you would have expected the older, more highly ranked player to come out on top under these circumstances.  However, Roberts had other ideas.  Even when she dropped the second set convincingly, Roberts persevered and claimed victory 6-0 2-6 6-4.  Rotokare’s Alex Macesic then pulled off a similar upset against Pukekura’s more highly ranked Derryn Fleming 7-5 6-4.  These wins left things all square after the singles 4-4.  Rotokare then comfortably claimed three of the four doubles.  In fact, the only doubles Pukekura won was a retirement in the top men's match.

Pukekura then pulled out three victories in the combines to leave the scores level at 8-8.  Rotokare still managed to carry the day by picking up the equivalent of two sets in two of the combines losses to win overall, 18 sets to 17. 

Inglewood also recorded a comprehensive victory over Stratford 13-3.  Inglewood would benefit from the inclusion of Beauden Fleming and Alex Spurdle who made their debut for the season.  The only players to win for Stratford were Callum Old in the top men’s singles position, who then partnered with Grant Kite to win the top men’s doubles.  Old then partnered with Courtney Tippett in the combines to win their match as well.  This victory will be a great confidence booster for Inglewood, who now know, if they put out their strongest side, are difficult to beat.
 

Oakura just edged out Huatoki in a tight contest 9-7 at Huatoki.  It was a classic battle of a strong Oakura men's line up attempting to counteract the dominance of a strong Huatoki women’s line up.  After the doubles and singles it was all tied up 6-6.  Oakura’s Brady Simpson 7-6(4) 1-6 6-3 win over Huatoki’s Josh Wormald at the number two position was an entertaining match from start to finish.  The player who could have felt the hardest done by at this point was Oakura’s Taylor Mitchell, who played extremely well at the number one position before losing to Sophie Robertson 6-2 5-7 6-0 in the singles and 2-6 6-2 7-6(7) in the doubles to Robertson and her partner Tracey Old.  Ultimately the male dominance of Oakura managed to just tip the scales in the combines, claiming three of the four available matches to clinch the win overall.  Huatoki will be encouraged by this result and can now look to build on this competitive outing heading into the last round before the Christmas break.
 

The points as of the 5th of December are Pukekura 75, Rotokare 57, Oakura 49, Okaiawa  46, Inglewood 39, Stratford 32 and Huatoki 26.
 

The last round before the break will see Huatoki hosting Stratford, Oakura will be away against Rotokare, Okaiawa will welcome Inglewood and Pukekura have the bye.
 

Diego Quispe-Kim No1 for Pukekura only 14 Yrs old beat Will Roberts 6-1 6-0

Will Roberts No 1 for Rotokare only 15

14 year old Tomi Avery made his Soffe Cup debut for Pukekura on Saturday winning his number 4 singles match against Shane Devlin 6-3 6-3