St Clair did enough to win the Dunedin club championship despite losing to Anderson’s Bay 4-2 on Saturday.
With rival Balmacewen also losing 4-2 to bottom-placed Taieri, St Clair had enough points in the bank to win the round-robin competition while Anderson’s Bay moved into second place with its win.
This week’s competition was affected by some top players being away at the North Otago Open. The tie between North Otago and OBHS was not played because of that event, and also because the school team was contesting the South Island School play offs in Timaru.
Both top players were playing in Oamaru but the tie between St Clair and held interest until the final points.
Jeff Elliotte, in his final match for St Clair before heading overseas, dismissed last week’s giant killer Lachlan Kenneally 6-2, 6-1 and Tony Ryder got the same score against Danny Fridberg.
But Henry Hailes and Leon Jiang in singles and the two doubles pairs, with Phil Mirfin partnering Kenneally in the top doubles, all hung in to claim three set wins in the remaining rubbers.
Leon Jiang deserved credit for his steadiness and his ability to frustrate Warren Watson when he came back from losing the second set 6-0, and being down 5-2 and match points in the third, to win it 7-5.
Although Taieri is in last place, with the return of Carlos Reid and the addition of Auckland student Hugo Tomlinson, it took a hard-fought result against Balmacewen.
Reid went down to Nelson student Henry Neas 6-3, 4-6, 7-5 in nearly three hours but played a part by allowing the lower order to post two wins after struggling in past weeks in the top order.
The loss of Paddy Ou (Balmacewen), who has transferred to Wellington, also had an impact.
Tomlinson, the brother of Otago Open titleholder Charlie Tomlinson, showed value in beating Nick Cutfield 6-1, 6-4 and partnering Reid to a third-set match tie-break doubles win.
Veteran Craig Buskin took a singles win for Taieri and combined with Phil Williams for a straight sets doubles result to create a winning margin, while newcomer Raoul Lenihan showed promise in ousting Eli Newall 6-2, 6-2.
After the Otago Open next weekend, knockout rounds will be played for the President’s Cup and this will be contested on a weekly challenge basis from the start of next season.
Competition points
Final result
St Clair-80, Anderson’s Bay 71, Balmacewen 62, OBHS 42, North Otago-30, Taieri-24.
Note: OBHS has two unplayed fixtures and Balmacewen v North Otago, to be played in Oamaru earlier, was rained out. Those results cannot affect the final outcome.
