Silver turns to gold for Atkinson

A belated gold medal is coming the way of Gladstone School pupil Sade Atkinson after the national 12yrs tennis championships in Timaru last week.
Atkinson, 12, was part of the Central girls squad which was originally placed second behind Canterbury in the teams event.
The southerners were allocated 31 points with Central on 30, Auckland 24, Southern 18, Northern 14 and Waikato-Bays 4.
However, a close scrutiny of that points situation by officials of the Central team, which had won all five of their matches, saw them asking for a recount and news broke yesterday that this had led to the top two placings being reversed.
And consequently the Central squad would be swapping the silver medals they were awarded at the tournament's end for those of the golden variety.
As it happened Atkinson had a big say in the end result.
She was involved in the last of the doubles games to finish against Canterbury with Central needing at least one set to give them the match, and as it turned out, the national title as well. And happily for Central they achieved that objective.
Atkinson, who has represented Wairarapa at senior level this season, played in the singles and doubles for Central throughout the teams event and won a good percentage of her games.
Meanwhile, the Wairarapa Tennis Association is holding their first Wairarapa closed champion of champions singles tournament this coming weekend the Sports Arena-sponsored event has attracted a pleasing 12 entries for the regional one men's event and eight for the regional two.
Top seed in the former is Jono Hurley while Rathkeale College student Kote Maeno should be a leading contender for the premier two title.