Age against young tennis women

Selector Luke Atkinson isn't expecting miracles from his Wairarapa squad at the annual inter-provincial tennis tournament to be played at the Renouf Centre in Wellington over the weekend.
The fact Wairarapa are even taking part in the tourney is a victory of sorts for Atkinson. Rumours were rife that a lack of players capable of being competitive at the top level could see them give it a miss. But he readily concedes they will be up against it in an event also involving Wellington, Hutt Valley, Kapi Mana, Wanganui and Manawatu.
"I think it's pretty clear to everybody we are going through a rebuilding phase," Atkinson said.
"We have a lot of very promising talent around but whether some of them are quite ready for this is another thing. I guess we just have to wait and see."
It is in their women's section where inexperience could be the biggest bugbear for Wairarapa. Of the six players named there, only Rhona Lovell has been around the senior representative scene for a while now, with Sade Atkinson, Zoe Schofield, Brooke Candy, Dushka Warren and Georgia Atkinson all in their teens.
Playing at No 1 in the singles will be 14-year-old Sade Atkinson, daughter of Luke, who last weekend was part of the Wellington club side which won the capital's premier interclub competition.
She is one of the country's top-ranked juniors and it will be interesting to see how she measures up to the high calibre of opposition confronting her this weekend.
As the current Wairarapa closed singles champion, Atkinson's sister Georgia, who is just 10, is also likely to get some singles action and, if so, she might well be the youngest player ever to have done so at this tourney.
In the men's section, Wairarapa at least have experience at the top of the order in Jono Hurley, Matt Spooner and Baden Stevenson but a lack of hard match play won't make their task any easier.
Hurley, who still managed to win his sixth successive closed singles title last month, and Spooner are having a season away from club tennis, while Stevenson has not long recovered from an ankle injury.
Joining them this weekend will be Chris Schofield, Greg Williams and Angus Preston.
Wairarapa will play top seeds Wellington on Saturday morning and have the bye on Saturday afternoon. On Sunday, they will play Kapi Mana, with the playoffs following later that day.
There will be no regional one interclub games in Wairarapa this weekend.
Gladstone have won the Shirley Corlett Trophy for being the leading team in the pre-Christmas series, having a three-point advantage over Pirinoa.