Rain fails to deter Welland & Philip in quest of victory

CHRIS Welland and Varun Philip and Arash Dinari and Lawrence Hay wished they had brought their swimming costumes and snorkels when they played on an evening of rather heavy rain.

- DAVE AND SUE GALE

It was the only match that took place that evening and despite the sodden balls feeling like cannonballs, they managed to play some good tennis with Chris and Varun winning 6-2, 6-5, 6-1.

Tom Pantling and sub Ignaciio de Reyna had a great game when they played Andrew Leigh and Chris Janes only just finishing before the lights went off.

Chris and Ignacio exchanged some big backhands throughout with Tom and Andrew having a battle at the net before Tom and Ignacio won 6-3, 6-4, 6-5.

Roger Wratten and Roy Barraclough got off to a good start in Men's B as it took Simon Dixon and Dave Gale a while to adapt to Roger and Roy's unique style of play.

Dave chose the sliced return option and Simon went for good deep placement of return. In a tactical stance, David and Simon's firepower and touch shots were too much for Roy and Roger and won 6-2, 6-2, 6-1.

Alex Stephenson and Dom Siveright played Miki Booth and Kevin Wilkins with the first set lasting an hour and Alex and Dom clinching it on the tie-break 10-8.

In the second set, Miki and Kevin took a 4-2 lead after breaking Alex's serve with some great returns, but Alex and Dom fought back to win in straight sets 6-5, 6-4, 6-2.

Richard Cooper and Lewis Edwards maintained their 100 percent win record with a 6-2, 6-2, 6-2 victory over father and son pair Vince and Connor Keep.

After losing the first set against Linda Trebilcock and Hilary Picton, Jess Randell and Nicky Slight went 4-0 up in the second, only for Hilary and to pull back to 5-5, but they couldn't win the tie-break.

There were many long rallies with both pairs lobbing into the winter sun and after two and half hours, Hilary and Linda finally won the third set to win overall 6-3, 5-6, 6-2.