St Clair and Balmacewen both advanced their cause and put a break on the rest with solid wins in Dunedin club tennis on Saturday.
St Clair took its fourth consecutive 4-2 win when it beat Eastern Harbour and moved to 32 points, while Balmacewen beat North Otago 5-1 to go to 30 points. McGlashan beat Taieri 5-1 in the other tie and Tertiary had the bye.
Eastern Harbour, which is yet to have the bye, holds third place on 24 points, McGlashan has 22, Tertiary 19, North Otago 12 and Taieri one.
Mitchell Sizemore (St Clair) followed up penetrating groundstrokes with aggression at the net but Ryan Eggers was able to retrieve many seemingly winning smashes and stay in the rallies.
However, Sizemore was able to hang on at the business end of each set to claim a 7-6, 7-5 result.
Jeff Elliotte was efficient in taking a 6-2, 6-2 win against Loen Jiang but Harbour’s Kobus Faber was again good value in beating Robin Versteeg and partnering Jiang to a doubles win.
Tony Ryder held out Gavin Mockford despite falling behind 6-1 when he took the next two sets 6-0, 7-5, and Sizemore and Elliotte needed a 10-2 match tiebreak to beat Eggers and Mockford.
Balmacewen’s top three of Paddy Ou, Henry Neas and Shaun Paringatai were too strong for North Otago counterparts Josh Dalziel, Matt Howard and Jackson Kerr respectively, but Nick Dalziel hit his best form for the season in downing Campbell Hodgson 6-3, 6-4.
The Dalziel brothers combined well to pressure Ou and Neas in the top double but lost 6-3, 7-5, while Howard and Kerr could claim only three games in the other.
John Vogel, who played at No1 for the national schools’ champion last year in Scots’ College, played as a "guest" for McGlashan, ironically, the school he helped defeat in the semifinals.
Vogel had too much power for veteran Darryl Paterson, winning 6-2, 6-0, but Paterson never stopped trying and made his opponent earn his points.
Carlos Reid demoted himself to No2 and was too consistent for German student Lucas Walzer, dropping only three games, but Paterson and Walzer were able to push Vogel and Reid to 7-5 in the second set.
Taieri gained its first point for the season when Thomas Kirk beat schoolboy Patrick Larivee 6-1, 6-4.
- Dennis Radford
