Otago tennis teams head to Queenstown and Oamaru as underdogs for the first round of the Southern League this weekend.
The A team meets Southern Lakes and North Otago in Queenstown, while the B team plays South Canterbury A and North Otago B in Oamaru.
Two Southland teams and Lakes B meet in Te Anau.
While the Otago A team men will be at full strength, the unavailability of several women will diminish the chances, especially against Lakes, which has won the title for the last 13 years and looks to be very strong again this season.
Otago took Lakes to a countback after ties were shared 7-5 each last time but the unavailability of the two top women from last year and the absence of several students mean Otago will struggle to match those results.
Otago has managed to get Otago Open and Indoor Open winner Aaron Hicks to travel back from Auckland and the Otago Player of the Year will aid the depth and give winning chances lower in the order to Mitchell Sizemore, Ryan Eggers, Carlos Reid and Paddy Ou.
All four are very even and have had close battles among themselves all season.
Rileigh Fields, Abby Edwards and Eliza Booth have represented Southern at junior nationals and will be asked to step up, while veteran Heike Cebulla-Elder makes her debut at division 1 level.
Lakes has former Berkeley player Riki McLauchlan at No1, and he is ranked much higher than the Otago players.
However, all are winning chances against the other Lakes players, who include former touring pro Perry Crockett, now coaching in Wanaka, Thai student Pichan Silagul and James Smith.
Former national top-tenner Mark Milburn and Chris Bradley, a previous top ranked junior, still retain their competitiveness and have been hard to contain in doubles in recent times.
The Lakes women are led by national junior rep Emilia Price, who was too good last season, and is now further experienced.
Li Ying Moroney, Suma Ito and Felicity Oxnevad are all veterans but have international experience, either as vets or in their youth, and can be relied upon to also be strong in doubles.
South Island schools champion Ines Stephani is also likely to be available, but yet to be confirmed.
North Otago is missing No1 woman Rebecca Dellaway but the men are solid and experienced, although ranked lower than the Otago group, and the women have a mixture of youth and experience.
No1 Nicky Wallace has recorded wins over some of the Otago women while a student in Dunedin.
The second round will be played in Dunedin later in the season, with a second round robin being played in Division 1, and the full round robin will be completed in Division 2 when Otago plays the three teams it has not met in Round 1.
