Rapaura win dramatic premier tennis decider

Rapaura Noir are the 2024 Wine Brokers NZ premier tennis champs after beating Marlborough Forrest Wines Whero 5-4 in a dramatic final on Sunday.

Whero went into the final, contested under burning blue skies at the Pollard Park courts, as top qualifier but were left to rue retirements by two players at key times as the decider went down to the wire.

Whero were on top after the opening round, winning two of the three doubles.

On the show court, Whero’s Hamish Morrow and Jaco van Hensbergen combined superbly to account for Ella Sowman and Jared Bell 6-4, 6-0, while Mieko Kimura and Emily Preece were forced to battle all the way before overcoming Jane Davidson and Caroline Cornelius 7-5, 6-4, 12-10 in a super tiebreaker.

Rapaura pulled one point back through Scott Booth and Blair Hantz, who downed  Mike and Flynn Weaver 6-3, 6-4.

The singles clashes were marred by two retirements, both by Marlborough players. Mike Weaver was forced to concede his match with Hantz, after losing the first set 6-0, due to a toe injury while Kimura was unable to continue against Davidson through heat exhaustion, despite leading 6-5 in the first set.

That put Rapaura ahead 3-2, although the scores were soon level when Morrow beat Sowman 6-3, 6-2 in the top singles.

Bell atoned for his doubles defeat, downing van Hensbergen 6-4, 6-1 in the second singles clash to put Rapaura back in front with two more matches to be completed.

Whero’s Flynn Weaver scored a super tiebreaker 1-6, 6-4 10-5 win to level the scores again but Rapaura had the final say and clinched the title when Caroline Cornelius defeated Preece 6-3, 6-0.