Pukerua Bay Doubles Plate Final

I'd like to say the plate final was the highlight of the day at Pukerua Bay, but that would be a lie. Brian and I wandered on to court around 10am as a thin scattering of spectators glanced across with vague and passing interest. But Brian's dad graced us with his presence, meaning that for the first time in the tournament we had a supporter!

Spurred on by the occasional faint clap we played a decent match and won the final 9-2. Our opposition were considerably older than ourselves, but we tried to ignore that fact and revelled in our triumph.

Sat around on the grass in the sunshine drinking beer and watching the main finals for the rest of the afternoon. Then came the presentation and our prize was a pair of cordless drills! I really had my heart set on a plate, but the drill was cool too.

Pukerua Bay Doubles Tennis Tournament

The day after my game with Phil Seemann I was playing with Brian in a doubles tournament up at Pukerua Bay. So we put aside the fact he'd put a serve on to my nose the day before, boarded his vintage Holden and drove up the coast via a quick stop to feed his parents' cat.

I was still pretty wrecked from the day before so I was hoping it wouldn't be too hard a day. At least it was all going to be doubles.

We had a good 9-1 win in the first round. The quarter-final was a lot tougher, against a pair from Ngatitoa (who were promoted this season to Regional 1). Brian started in superb form and we got to 4-1 up mostly as a result of his excellent serving and big forehands. It was really windy and I was struggling on my own serve, getting broken as we lost our lead to go 6-4 down. I held my final couple of service games and we got a break back, to recover from 8-5 down to 8-7, but they played a very solid final game to wrap up a 9-7 win.

That consigned up to the consolation plate event! After much hanging around we won our plate matches 9-2 and then 9-0. We'll be appearing in the plate final on Monday.

Apart from the wind it was a nice sunny day, a very attractive club with great views out to the coast and a really friendly tournament. There was a lot of waiting around but the free tea and toasted hot cross buns were a big help with that. We got home around 8:30pm, 12 hours after setting off, and tried to patch things up with our girlfriends who'd been expecting us home about 4 hours earlier.

Thorndon club tournament

I reached the quarter-finals of the men's singles with a 6-2 6-1 win over John O'Donnell. My opponent was number 3 seed Phil Seeman from the first team. He used to be top 10 in New Zealand and is still in pretty good shape as he's a black belt in karate.

I got out to a great start going 4-0 up. Phil then began to come back at me but I held on to take the first set 6-4. The second set was tight all the way through but Phil got it 6-4.

In the final set Phil got a break and was serving at 4-3. I then had a really good patch to win 10 points out of the next 11, and get to 5-4 up and 15-30 on Phil's serve. After spinning his leftie serve out wide all day Phil then came up with a big ace down the middle for 30-30. I got the next point to earn a match point at 30-40. Phil came up with another big serve down the middle and, even though I was half-expecting it this time, I still couldn't return it.

That was my only chance. Phil then saved that game. I held serve to go 6-5 up but Phil came back to 6-6. I went 0-40 down in my next service game, came back to have a game point, but then lost the game with a couple of errors. Phil then closed out the match 8-6 in the third with a very good final service game.

The whole match took around two and a half hours and I had cramps running up and down my legs for most of the third set. Phil's about 12 years older than me and I worked him as hard as I could but he just kept going! Very enjoyable match - I played as well as I could have hoped against a player ranked well above me, and on another day might have managed to close it out. But well done to Phil on a great effort. He now plays Nick White (the number 2 seed) in the semis.

The second team's last hope for a semis spot is Kris Funston. He's plays the number 4 seed Robbie Kirkness tomorrow, and that should be a very good game. The winner of that plays number 1 seed Marc Paulik.

I had to go straight back on court for my first round doubles with Andy Wheeler. We came through a close game with Mark Upton and Brian Francis 6-4 7-5. They played a very good match with Mark getting everything back and Brian serving so well that at one point he managed to hit me on the nose! Fortunately that seemed to put him off a bit and we finally managed to break him.

Final league table

Here's the final league table for Wellington Regional 2 Promotion, with Thorndon pipped to the first spot by Miramar but with promotion comfortably achieved.

And here are my NZ results. The NZ Topdog rankings system is excellent, with rankings updated every couple of weeks and everyone's result history available to see. Always worth checking up on your next opponent!

Thorndon second men's team season review

I play on the Thorndon Tennis Club second men's team in Wellington, NZ. The first team is a bit of an all-star cast, including a number 1 who flies down from Auckland, so the second team is the best that we mere mortals can aspire to!

Here we all are from the summer 08/09 season. From left to right: Brian Francis, Kris Funston, Simon Brown (me), Andy Wheeler and Chris Patete.















This shot was taken during Andy Wheeler's world record coaching session, where he coached for an astonishing 30 consecutive hours to raise money for charity:

http://worldrecordsalmanac.com/sports/longest_tennis_coaching_marathon-world_record_set_by_Andy_Wheeler_90153.htm

I got back to New Zealand in October 2008 with the season already underway and the second team competing in Wellington Regional 3. We got on to a great run winning all five of the remaining matches, finishing up with 8-0 wins against Salamanca and Wellington B. For a brief spell our position at the top of the league looked assured, till it turned out we'd failed to nominate Kris on the 'club ranking list' and 4 walkovers were promptly given against us. A rather desperate appeal was launched after frenzied reading of the rulebook and we got it reduced to one walkover and still stayed top of the league. The original 4 walkovers would have consigned us to the post-Xmas relegation play-offs.

After Christmas we got stuck into the promotion play-offs for Regional 2, which the second team have never reached. First up were Khandallah and we lost on an agonising game countback after a 3-3 draw on rubbers (from being 3-0 up). We recovered with a fine 5-1 win against Petone while Andy Wheeler was back at Thorndon doing his world record coaching marathon.

The next game against Wellington was our low point, where we lost a string of close rubbers to end up losing 5-1. It was a tough day for Andy in particular who was well ahead in the final sets of both his doubles and singles only to have them slip away. We missed Kris (injured) and Brian (in Oz) for this one, though Steve Goodman stepped in to play an excellent doubles. This left us needing a strong run to secure promotion.

Next match up was table-topping Miramar, who brought in one of their top first team players (Alan Ambrose). Andy and I had our what may be our best ever doubles win, beating Alan and Cameron Steel. I had little chance against Alan in the singles, scrapping out a 6-2 6-2, but the rest of the team stormed through and we got a crucial 4-2 win.

The league looked very tight at this point but we had three of the easier games still to come, and Kris 'The Funstonator' was coming back to fitness and just thrashing everyone he came up against.

We got a good 5-1 win against University, with myself suffering the only defeat at 1 against David Buckrell after winning against the same player before Christmas. I'd joined a gym in the meantime so it was good to see all the hard fitness work not paying off!

Against Titahi Bay we got an 6-0 win to virtually assure promotion. It was a beautiful sunny day, and Jane and I wondered over to have a look at the bay once the tennis was over.














The last game was against our closest rivals for promotion, Karori Lawn. This was a tough match played in increasingly wet conditions, but we came through 5-1 to finish the season on a high. For a while it looked as though we'd win the league but Wellington defaulted most of the rubbers in their final match against Miramar, and Miramar beat us by one point! But promotion was what mattered and we're looking forward to next season already.

As winter rolls in to Wellington the tennis continues. The club tournaments are in full swing and the indoor winter Business House league kicks off soon, where the Thorndon team will be playing as 'Yours'.

Photos from our US and Canada road trip

It was a terrific trip in the US and Canada, partly for the tennis and partly
for the endless great scenery and things to do. Several of my tennis opponents gave their own comments on the matches, which can be found on the Tennis Warehouse website:

http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?t=155155


The trip occurred when we were on our way back to the UK from a year spent working in New Zealand. It turned out to only be a temporary return as we (myself and Jane) are back in New Zealand now. So our trip started out with two weeks in NZ's south island. This included a day at the beautiful Milford Sound.




We flew to San Francisco, stayed for a few nights and then drove inland over the Hoover Dam to the amazing Grand Canyon.





























We looped back down through LA and up the coast to San Francisco again, pausing for a stop by the Golden Gate Bridge.














Finally we got all the way up the coast to Vancouver, where Jane met a friendly bear.


















And shortly afterwards we ran across a slightly more dangerous one.














We flew from Vancouver to Toronto, and had a fun day trip at the Niagara Falls. It didn't have the isolated charm of Milford Sound but the waterfall itself was amazing.















We drove from Canada down through New England, in its incredible fall colours.














We headed across to Portland, then down to Salem, Hartford and ultimately Martha's Vineyard where our friend Sophie from the UK met us.














Our final stop was Boston, where we dropped in on a famous bar. Boston was a great city and was the perfect way to finish the trip.

Rommil in Hartford

Match 7

Opponent: Rommil
Opponent Rating: 4.0
Date: Sat 13 Oct, 11am
Location: Hartford, Connecticut. East Hartford Tennis Club
Surface: Indoor Hard
Result: 6-0 6-0



All good things must come to an end and it was nice to finish up against Rommil who was one of the first people to reply when I put up this thread, and has kept in touch since.

A beautiful drive down from Montreal through the New England fall scenery finally brought us to Hartford (via a couple of other stops). Getting to the match wasn't easy - there was heavy traffic with a marathon being run around town, and my girlfriend wanted to be dropped at the mall on the opposite side of town from the tennis club ! I could hardly refuse and eventually got to Rommil around 11:15.

Similarly to my previous couple of matches I ended up being the steady, unspectacular one while Rommil hit some superb winning forehands but made a few errors, particularly on the backhand. Rommil had several game points but they all fell my way and I got the 6-0 6-0 win.

Rommil was generous with his line-calling, giving me anything that might have caught any part of the line, and stayed positive throughout. He was even polite enough to ask me if I was ready after smacking an ace past me! I had to own up that it has just gone by me in a flash before I could even move.

We played one more set afterwards and Rommil broke my serve in the very first game. It just shows how the threat of losing $50 has raised my concentration levels!

I'm writing this up from Boston and am heading back to the UK in 3 days. It's all been so much fun and I'm really grateful to the 7 guys who showed up to play me, and sorry to a couple of people who got in touch but we couldn't sort out a time. I'll post up a 'review of the tour' when I get a chance with a few more thoughts on the whole thing now it's over.