Tennis: Teens take places in Residential finals

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The younger players managed to hold off their older opponents to make the finals at the NZ Residentials tennis champs, but it was no easy thing as there was a couple of battles in the men's semis and women's semifinals.

Both finals will feature the top two seeds after they won through in front of big crowds indoors at the Albany Tennis Park, North Harbour.

Russian-born Kiwi, Artem Sitak, the top seed ranked at 338 in the world, will take on second seed, Marvin Barker, the Kiwi-born, but Aussie-raised player.

Barker, 19, and ranked 909 in the world, accounted for former South African pro 31-year-old Wesley Whitehouse who tried to use his big serve to stay in the match but was eventually defeated 6-3 6-4.

Sitak, 24, had to overcome a determined Mark Nielsen who won the tournament in the 1990s and still plays in the same professional and methodical way for every point.

Nielsen won the first set 6-3, but in the humid conditions started to cramp as Sitak forced his way back grinding out the points and winning the second set 6-3. The long and exciting rallies finally gave out to shorter winning points and unforced errors crept in in the final set as Sitak started to dominate and take the set 6-1 in just under three hours.

"It was a hard and good match over Nielsen and it won't be easy against Barker in the final," said Sitak.

In the women's singles two teenagers will contest the title with top seed Katherine Westbury, 17, taking on second seed Leela Beattie, 16.

Beattie, from Canterbury surprisingly found herself down a set 2-6 against former professional Shona Lee (22) the tournament fifth seed, but then overcame her nerves and found her rhythm to win the next two sets 6-0 6-1.

Westbury who has a WTA world ranking of around 650 put away former professional Kairangi Vano (21) 6-4 6-1 in her semifinal.