James Murphy
THE final minor round of Mount Gambier and District tennis was contested across the region over the weekend.
Finals now loom for the top teams in each grade, with the Division 2 competition looking to be hotly contested.
Top teams Mount Gambier and West Gambier locked horns on Saturday to see out the home-and-away season, with a tight battle unfolding.
The result came down to game count after both sides won six sets each and Mount Gambier emerged victorious by eight games.
The singles were close, with three sets each and most matches were hard fought.
The top men’s game saw Gambier’s Will Cameron defeat West’s Jamie Higgins 6-2, while Gambier’s Jodie Carey accounted for Leanne Ballintyne by the same margin.
However, the remaining sets were arm wrestles, including a tiebreaker between Ben Kerin and Mark Stutley.
Stutley came out on top to earn West a set, while Matthew Charlton’s 7-5 triumph over Lachlan Patzel gave West another win.
West’s Sharon Edwards was also victorious with a 6-4 win over Taryn Gartner, while the remaining set was won by Gambier’s Renae Cameron over Gemma Ballintyne 6-3.
With the game all locked up, the doubles produced some looser margins.
However, with three sets each the set count remained tied at the end of play.
Gambier’s closer loses proved the difference in the end and with 59 games won to West’s 51, they clinched the win to prove why they finished minor premiers.
The other two fixtures of the round were one-sided affairs.
The first saw third-placed Glencoe stamp its authority on Reidy Park with a 10-2 set win.
Glencoe won four of the six singles, which included a forfeit to Reidy’s Correa Backmann to Alison Auld.
The Reidy women carried their team, with the other two sets won by Maggie Collins and Sarah Brown against Chloe Watson and Eliza Cole respectively.
Meanwhile the men’s sets all fell Glencoe’s way.
David Ferguson proved to strong in the top match with a 6-1 win over Michael Ellis, while Sam Auld trumped Christopher Cowland 6-0.
A tiebreaker was needed to decide the third rubber, but it was Glencoe’s David Cole who came out on top of Harrison Ellis.
Reidy was without success on the doubles’ court, with all six sets won by the home team.
Of those the closest saw Cole survive another tiebreak in his partnership with Sam Auld, with the duo besting Cowland and Ellis in a hard-fought battle.
Suttontown put in a dominant performance over a visiting Mil Lel to conclude its season with a 12-0 win.
A tiebreak in the top men’s singles was a highlight, with Brody Sharam holding out CJ Arnold.
The men’s doubles partnership of Tom Inglis and Cory Sharam also faced plenty of resistance, with their 7-5 win over Jason Brooks and Pattrick Robinson well earned.
On the other end of the spectrum, Sharam had a dominant 6-0 win in his singles, while Lizzie Doyle and Molly Lennon had 6-2 wins in their singles matches, adding to the eventual whitewash of 12-74 to 0-38.
Teams will now prepare for semi finals across all grades this weekend, with plenty on the line in the do-or-die clashes.
