Tennis: Rotorua complete countback win 1 week later

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The Rotorua women's premier tennis team scraped through with a win over their Otumoetai/Mount Maunganui opponents by countback on Saturday.

The Rotorua women's team took to the court after their earlier match-up, the weekend before, was rained off in Rotorua. They completed the three singles matches that had been rained off.

Rotorua's captain Leona Davis-Kaye had lost the first set to Kailie Going last week but was ahead four games to one in the second. She continued her late charge in the match by winning the next two games to win the second set 6-1 and then won the third set easily 6-1.

Weiwei Verran (Rotorua) was not able to come back from losing the first set last week and ended up losing her match 4-6, 4-6 to Debbie Garea.

The match of the afternoon was the number one singles match between Rotorua's Pang Suwanapossee against Ashleigh Harvey.

Harvey had already convincingly won the first set 6-1 last week. The pair continued into the second with Suwanapossee slightly ahead at the start of play. Both players traded hard hitting backhand and forehand shots from the baseline with Suwanapossee clearly the underdog in the battle.

Nevertheless she pulled through winning the second set 6-4 but went on to lose the third set to Harvey 2-6. The standard of play in this match was of the highest quality.

With the matches between the two sides tied at three-all and countback on sets also tied at seven-all, the winner of the tie was determined by countback on games. That result had Rotorua as the winner with 63 games and Otumoetai/Mount Maunganui on 52. That means the Rotorua women's team continue their undefeated run this season in the Waikato Bay of Plenty interclub competition.

The Rotorua women's and men's teams will play at home again on Saturday, at the Rotorua Tennis Club. The women's team will host Tauranga Lawn Tennis Club while the men's team host St Peter's Tennis Club (Hamilton).