Tennis: Top seeds dominate in NZ Residentials

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In its long history, the NZ Residentials can have had few finals days as short as this.

The top seeds dominated their opponents in the finals of both the men's and women's singles indoors at North Harbour, earning themselves guaranteed spots in both the ASB Classic and Heineken Open qualifying draws.

Top men's seed Artem Sitak - the Russian-born player - completely overpowered and out-thought Marvin Barker, the Australian-raised second seed, 6-1, 6-0, in just 55 minutes.

The women's final didn't take much longer as No 1 seed Katherine Westbury, 17, was far too consistent for second seed Leela Beattie, winning 6-4, 6-0 in one hour 12 minutes. Westbury, who has a WTA world ranking of around 650, will now find herself among a raft of top 100 players in the ASB Classic qualifying in just over a week's time.

Westbury is Hamilton-born, Canterbury-raised of Thai parents, but the family is looking at relocating to Melbourne, although she is certain of playing for New Zealand and has thrown herself behind the nation of which she is now the national champion.

"I'm playing as a Kiwi, not Thai or Australian," said Westbury, who is looking forward to being around players such as Maria Sharapova and Dinara Safina.

"It is good to win this tournament. I started pretty slowly and was down 0-2 in front of a lot of people but I found a rhythm and kept going."

For Sitak, 24, winning at the Residentials means he has not lost domestically, having won in the Waikato, Auckland Champs, West End Cup and then the national title where his serve helped him win a number of free points with nine aces in total. Barker, 19, served five double faults and was never in the match against a player ranked nearly 600 places higher at 338 in the world.

Sitak's citizenship has been confirmed, and Tennis NZ are keen to have him in the Davis Cup team for their away clash against Uzbekistan in March.