Manawa Rakete-Shea (12) out-performed his seeding by reaching
the final of the national 12 and under championships in
Hamilton at the weekend.
Rakete-Shea, formerly of Dunedin, transferred to the
Queenstown Tennis Academy to train under Lan Bale.
He lost the national final to Macsen Sisam (Auckland), who
recently won the Australian junior title for his age. Sisam
lost only eight games in five matches in reaching the final
and continued his dominance, winning 6-1, 6-0.
Rakete-Shea, the fourth seed, beat three other seeds in his
path to the final, and one of those, Jamie Garbutt, of
Canterbury, went on to win the feed-in consolation event.
Peter Hartono, of Dunedin, won the playoff for seventh and
eighth after being eliminated in the quarterfinal, while
Bjorn Pollock, of Queenstown, made the semifinal of the
consolation event.
Both boys' and girls' winners were most impressive. Valentina
Ivanov, now training in Australia but registered through
Canterbury, adding the 12s title to the 14s she won earlier.
She also won her final 6-1, 6-0 and lost only nine games in
her five matches.
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