JUNIOR SPORT - Northern tennis team turns up the heat

NORTHLAND'S Lochlan Kitchen led the way as the Northern Region's junior representative team found success bringing home the silverware in the Northern regional tournament against teams from the Central and Waikato-Bay of Plenty regions.
The Kamo club player won all four of his singles matches in the competition last weekend, an outstanding performance that in the end proved vital to his team's success.
Thirty regional representative players from the under-12, under-14 and under-16 year-old age groups were chosen to play at the tournament, with selections based upon their "Topdog" computer ranking points.
These are accumulated through tournament and interclub play during the season.
The Northern team, picked from the North Harbour-Northland regions, was led by international coach and former New Zealand Davis Cup captain Jeff Simpson at the tournament held at the ASB Tennis Centre in Hamilton.
Northern held a four-point lead at the end of an extra long, rain interrupted first day's play.
With a 9pm finish plus the loss of an hour's sleep due to the start of daylight savings, the players were back on court just 10 hours later for the second day's schedule.
Kitchen had his success playing in the under-14 division, with the only other Whangarei player in the team, Ben Muller, also from Kamo, playing well at the under-12 level.
In a tense finish at the end of a very hot second day, Northern were declared tournament champions, immediately bringing an end to the remaining two doubles matches still being played on court.
The Northern Region will be looking to repeat this kind of form at the six-region New Zealand National Junior Teams Events in Auckland, Christchurch and Timaru in January next year.
The final competition standings were (with two to play):
Northern 71.5 points, Waikato-Bays 69, Central 66.