North Harbour and Waitakere remain unbeaten after three rounds of badminton's provincial team championships, the Wisden Cup, but Harbour scored the narrowest of wins to maintain their challenging for the title.
Waitakere thrashed Southland without dropping a match or even a game in their 16-0 victory but North Harbour relied on a countback win -18-17 on games - over the top Auckland team after matches were eight apiece.
Again it was North Harbour's female players who led the way with former Kiwi international Jessica Jonggowisastro winning two of her three matches and Indonesia import, Ganis Nurahmandani completing a hat-trick of wins.
The strong Waikato team still have an outside chance of winning the competition after their 13-3 victory over Auckland (2).
In the Slazenger Cup, top seeds Wellington North overcame Bay of Plenty 12-4 and Waitakere easily put away Otago with the loss of just one match. North Harbour and Canterbury played out an 8-8 draw on matches with Harbour winning 22-21 games on countback.
