Wairarapa senior tennis selector Steve Hurley is expecting a strong showing from his team at their annual quadrangular tournament to be played at the Masterton Tennis Centre on December 10, 11 and 12.
Hurley is heartened by the fact that up to five players who play their club tennis in the Wellington area will be available for Wairarapa.
Jono Hurley, Marcus Daniell, Chris Wilkie, Charlotte Gibson and Emma Stevenson have all indicated a keeness to play and their presence should guarantee Wairarapa is a force to be reckoned with in matches against Kapi Mana, Wellington, Hutt Valley and Manawatu.
Teams for each game will contain four men and four women but Hurley says he will be naming a bigger squad than that in order to ensure that fitness does not become an issue.
"It's a very exhausting three days and some players handle it better than others," he said. "The more playing options you have the better."
For Wairarapa's junior teams this weekend sees their quadrangular tournaments, also against opposition from Kapi Mana, Wellington, Hutt Valley and Manawatu.
The under-10s are playing at Masterton, the under-12s at Hawke's Bay and the under-14s at Hutt Valley.
The Wairarapa closed championships are set down for November 20 and 21 at the Masterton Tennis Centre.
A programme has been formulated which see the B grade singles and doubles and A grade doubles played on the Saturday and the A grade singles on the Sunday. The latter is expected to involve most of those players competing at club level in Wellington so a powerful line-up is being anticipated.
Opaki will be thirsting for revenge in the Wairarapa regional one tennis competition tomorrow.
They will be keen to claim the scalp of Masterton after suffering a comprehensive 9-0 loss to that team the last time they met.
Opaki wasn't at full strength on that occasion though so the result very probably didn't reflect the merits of the two teams.
At the same time,however , Masterton will start firm favourites as they do appear to have greater depth in both their men's and women's sections.
A close contest seems likely in the other regional one match between Carterton and Martinborough at Martinborough.
Carterton might have the edge amongst the men with Martinborough capable of calling the tune amongst the women.
Wairarapa tennis selector confident
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