Tennis: Open to test province’s best

A men's field of great depth will have its fitness tested this weekend in the Otago Tennis Open.

With 32 entries confirmed, the winner will have played five singles and three or four doubles over the tournament.

By contrast, the women's draw contains only six players, five of whom are juniors.

The men's top seed and current titleholder, Auckland student Aaron Hicks, has been done no favours in the draw.

He meets Nelson student Hamish Low, the brother of a former champion Alex Low, in the first round.

Low has had plenty of match play lately and has run into some useful form.

Hicks has also copped a horror draw in the doubles, where he is partnered by Howick team-mate Chris Duncan.

They play Philip Hoeper (Canterbury) and Connor van Dalsum (Northland) for the right to meet top seeds Paddy Ou and Ryan Eggers in the second round.

Ou has the second seeding in the singles on the back of some recent good results, which has propelled him up the national rankings on which seedings are based.

Mitchell Sizemore is seeded third, but is drawn in Hicks' half of the draw, while highly ranked Queenstown junior Peter Hartono, who has travelled weekly to play club tennis in Wellington, takes fourth spot.

However, Ryan Eggers and Carlos Reid, the next two seeds, have scored wins against the higher ranked players earlier in the season and Hoeper and van Dalsum occupy seventh and eighth places.

Dangerous floaters include Manawa Rakete-Shea from Queenstown, whose ranking does not fully reflect his rapid recent rise, along with Simon Darmon and Ciaran Lynch from Canterbury.

Several young Southlanders will test themselves at this level also.

After Ou and Eggers, the doubles seeds are Reid and Sizemore, Low and doubles specialist Jeff Elliotte, then Darmon and Lynch.

The six women have been divided into two round robin pools of three and a new name on the roll of honour is assured.

Local juniors Rileigh Fields and Eliza Booth have the top two spots, and could meet in the final, which would see a replay of the recent secondary schools qualifier in which Booth caused a minor upset.

Play is scheduled for Logan Park in Dunedin, with the Edgar Centre as a backup, and the singles finals are expected to be played late tomorrow morning to be followed by doubles semifinals and finals.

Singles semifinals are set down for 9am today