Tennis: Smooth ride for eventual winners

It was straight sets and fairly straightforward wins in the men's and women's finals at the Auckland tennis champs last night.

The women's final had second seed Tracey O'Connor beating third seed Shona Lee in breezy conditions in a match which never rose to any great occasion.

O'Connor, 22, who has a WTA ranking of 668, raced to a 4-0 lead in the first set over 17-year-old Lee, who is 716 in the world. However, Lee managed to break her opponent's serve twice to gain some credibility in the set.

The second set was a lot closer, with mostly even scores until O'Connor broke Lee's serve in the ninth game to go up 5-4. She then held serve to win the set and match 6-3, 6-4.

Both players hope to put some pressure on ASB Classic tournament director Richard Palmer for a qualifying wildcard into the event which starts with qualifying on December 31.

With the New Zealand Residentials starting today at North Harbour, O'Connor is again the second seed and is set to face Abigail Guthrie in the quarters and either Kairangi Vano or Paula Marama in the semis.

Lee will be the third seed with prospects for a semifinal against top seed Leanne Baker.

Bernie Parun, son of former Davis Cup player, Tony, and nephew of Onny, won the men's champs.

Parun, 26, the tournament third seed, was ranked inside the world's top 400 but suffered a knee injury which kept him out of action for several months early this year.

Parun hustled his way to victory over top seed Dan King-Turner, of Canterbury, in the wind, chipping and charging into the net and putting pressure on his opponent.

For King-Turner, it was his second final in a row at the Auckland champs and his second runner-up finish.

King-Turner has a bye in the first round of the Residentials, with a likely match up against Auckland's Adam Branks. If he wins that he is seeded to meet talented Bay of Plenty 16-year-old Austen Childs in the quarters.

Second seed is Adam Thompson, who has a good run through to the quarter-finals where he most likely faces Rade Radinovich. The Residentials run until Sunday followed by the national 18s tournament.