Dunedin schoolgirl Georgia Hume (14) came close to causing a major upset in the national 14-and-under indoor tennis championship which concluded in Dunedin yesterday.
In the semifinal, she took top seed Mia Middleton (North Harbour) to 7-5, 3-6, 6-7 and had two match points when 5-4 up in the final set.
She had earlier fought back from 4-5 down in the first set to claim it 7-5.
Middleton had dropped only one game in reaching the semifinal but lost a tight final 7-5, 6-4 to Bridget Liddell (Wellington).
Liddell's father Graeme played for Otago and Southern for many years as a student.
Hume backed up her strong form when she won the play-off for third and fourth against Lucia Young (Auckland) coming back from a 6-1 loss in the first set to win the next two 7-5, 6-4.
She also partnered Young to the doubles final where they lost to Annabel Ellis and Gabriela Coates (South Canterbury) 6-3, 6-4.
Ellis and Coates had eliminated top seeds Middleton and Trixie Croad 10-8 in a third set tiebreak.
The boys' singles final was won by Elliot Darling (Canterbury) who beat Olly Sadler (Wellington) in the final 6-4, 7-6. Sadler had earlier been down a set 6-0 before coming back to outlast a visiting Chinese tourist Yangeng Jiang.
Otago's Mitchell Sizemore and Carlos Reid went out in the quarterfinals after earlier wins over opponents from Marlborough and Taranaki.
The 12-and-under titles begin today with semifinals on Monday and finals on Tuesday.
