Wairarapa could again be the "dark horses" when the annual quinrangular inter-provincial tennis tournament gets underway at Mitchell Park, Lower Hutt tonight.
Their second placing last year in a competition which sees them pitted against Hutt Valley, Wellington, Manawatu and Kapi-Mana was their best-ever effort at this particular event and caught
most pundits by surprise.
And while Wairarapa fans will be confident of their team's ability to at least repeat that effort over the next three days they will still be regarded as underdogs by most of their opposition.
The fact Marcus Daniell has returned to spearhead their men's section is a huge boost for Wairarapa as he is ranked amongst the top six male players in the country and should secure a series of wins in both singles and doubles play.
Not only that, it also means that another very talented player in Jono Hurley these days coaching professionally in Wairarapa is able to slot in at the No.2 position in the singles and he should be able to dominate there as well.
Indeed there is depth of talent right through the men's section with Baden Stevenson at three, followed by Luke Atkinson, Chris Schofield and Geoff Janse, the latter two probably being used more in doubles than singles action.
Wairarapa should be able to anticipate too some good results from their women as while they might not have a player of Daniell's or Hurley's calibre amongst their numbers there is an evenness which suggests they should pick up their share of victories right through the order.
So even are the women, in fact, that selector Steve Hurley could have a headache deciding who plays where in both the singles and doubles.
Emma Stevenson, Katie Wyeth and Leanne Sweeney will possibly take the first three spots in the singles with either Ashleigh Gane, Natasha Robinson and Jan Wyeth coming in at number four. In Jan Wyeth's case, in particular, doubles play will be her forte as her experience and guile will be very useful there.
The draw for Wairarapa sees them playing Hutt Valley tonight, Manawatu and Wellington tomorrow and defending champions Kapi-Mana on Sunday afternoon.
Matches in the Wairarapa regional one inter-club competition continue tomorrow and with some teams obviously weakened by key players missing because of representative duties results are difficult to predict with any certainty. For the sake of argument though we will pick Martinborough to beat Masterton at Masterton, Carterton to edge out Gladstone at Carterton and Opaki to beat Pirinoa at Opaki.
