SC shine at Canterbury Tournament

Several SC junior players competed in the recent Canterbury tournament just before Christmas.  The first event to get underway was the Boys 14s – Josh Cameron, SC (8th seed) made it through the first two rounds comfortably to meet Reece Falck (1st seed) in the quarters.  Josh played hard attacking tennis against Reece, with reece coming out the eventual winner 6-1, 6-1.  George McAleer, SC, caused an upset in the first round when he met Edwin Dargue (6th seed), beating him 7-5, 6-4.  Another win to George in the 2nd round saw him come up against Sam Bubb (4th seed) in the quarters.  After a close encounter Sam cam out the winner 6-1, 6-3.  This is a pleasing result leading into the National 14s event for Josh and George.

The younger age groups followed the 14s with Kate Crawford playing in the Girls 12s and her younger sister Lucy in the Girls 10s.  Jock Rollinson lined up in the Boys 11s following his recent birthday.  Kate (4th seed) made it through to the semi-finals where she met Abby Mason (2nd seed) from ChCh.  Abby took the win 6-0, 6-0.  Kate then played off for 3-4th placing against Isabella Story to finish 4th (3-6, 0-6).   Lucy is showing promise making it all the way to the final of the Girls 10s where she battled it out with Ruby Young, recent winner of the SI Primary Schools Yr6 title, to finish runner-up (0-4, 1-4).   Jock had an easy first round win then a tough battle against Blake Cullen in the 2nd round/quarters with Blake taking out the match 7-5, 6-1. Jock went through to the play-offs for 5-6th place against Luca Landells, and went down in a very tight encounter (6-4, 5-7 and 3-10)

This year a mixed doubles grade was introduced.  Josh and Kate teamed up for this and in the A grade section provided some exciting spectator viewing.  They had an impressive win over the more fancied 2nd seeds: 6-2, 7-5 and made their way into the final against the 1st seeds to finish runners up.  Well done Josh and Kate.

For the first time sisters Kate and Lucy teamed up in the Girls 11s Doubles and surprised themselves when they took out the title for this event.  Well done girls.