College sport: Jones stands out at Sydney tennis event

The life of teenage tennis player GD Jones seems to get busier and busier.

Last week the Kings College seventh former won his first ATP entry ranking point by beating Australian Ryan Henry in the first round of the US$10,000 Futures in Blenheim.

Jones scored his second win in a Futures event yesterday, beating an Indian opponent in the first round of the Christchurch Futures.

He lost his second-round clash to the eventual finalist before flying to Sydney, where he represented New Zealand in the International Club 16s event.

New Zealand finished third out of the six teams and were disappointed at not making the final.

The team of Jones, Rade Radinvoich (Auckland Grammar), Shona Lee (Rosehill) and Nicole Douglas (Western Heights) gained some consolation with a strong victory over Hong Kong in the play-off for third place.

Jones won all his singles matches and was one of the standout players of the event.

Jones won't be 17 until early next month and is looking forward to representing Kings in the premier tennis competition against Auckland Grammar this Saturday.

The clash won't necessarily be easy because Grammar are led by Caro Bowl player Kiril Tcherveniachki, 17, and others such as Peter Grimsby and Rade Radinovich are in the team.

Tcherveniachki, too, has had some recent good results. He has just moved inside the world's top 100 juniors on the ITF rankings.

Tcherveniachki is ranked at 96 after making the semifinals of the Indonesian Group 2 tournament last week.

KARTING

Forest View High School student Bradley Turrell has claimed an early lead in the New Zealand Rotax Max Kart Challenge. The Tokoroa student came from behind to win an all-action final at the first round of the five-round 2003 series at Hamilton's PowerBeat Raceway.

Tyrrell, 15, set the second fastest time in qualifying. He won the first two heats and was third in the third.

Starting the pre-final from pole position, the student quickly regretted his decision to use heavily treaded wet tyres as the track dried out.

He struggled to stay in touch, but drifted back to eighth position at the flag.

In the final, the teenager displayed maturity well beyond his years in working his way to the front. An elated Tyrrell won after 24 laps, 5.8s ahead of NZ Rotax Max importer Jon Wright and 6.6s ahead of former NZ representative Mark Lane.

Tyrrell goes into second round of the New Zealand Challenge with a four-point lead in the overall standings.

He will be a hot contender in this weekend's CIK Trophy of New Zealand event at the Shell Helix Raceway on Rosebank Rd in Avondale, Auckland.

ATHLETICS

A 400m record set 31 years ago by Olympic marathon bronze medallist Lorraine Moller was broken at the mid-island zone championships in Tokoroa yesterday.

Seventeen-year-old Monique Williams, representing Forest View High School, ran 56.70s on the grass track at Tokoroa to better Moller's 1972 record of 58.00s.

Williams, who was ranked 10th in the world over 800m after last year's world youth championships in Hungary, had earlier broken Morag McKechnie's 1976 200m record of 25.70s by running 24.60s.

A host of athletics championships are coming up around the Auckland region next week.

The Counties Manukau champs are being held at Massey Park, Papakura, on Tuesday. The Auckland championships are the following day at Mt Smart No 2 track and the North Harbour event takes place on Thursday.

TRIATHLON

Late entries are expected to result in more than 100 competitors representing 25 schools in triathlon events.

The juniors tackle a 400m swim, a 12km bike ride and a 3km run.

Intermediate students compete over a 500m swim, 15km cycle ride and 4km run. The seniors swim 750m, cycle 20km and run 5km.

It is expected that the traditionally strong schools such as Auckland Grammar, Rangitoto, Dio and St Kents will again excel.