Canberra Velocity’s women’s team dominated their opening tie of the Asia-Pacific Tennis League at Sydney Olympic Park tonight.
The highly fancied team, led by local players Alison Bai and Ashley Keir, convincingly won all their matches against the lower
ranked City Community Tennis outfit.
Velocity’s men’s team wasn’t so lucky, losing convincingly to the experienced ATP Sydney team, boasting touring professionals Adam Feeney, Nick Lindahl and Greg Jones.
With the winner the first player to reach four games, Bai, 22, opened with a 4-1, 4-3 win over Alex Osborne.
Keir, currently the sixth-ranked junior in Australia, fought off an early challenge from Natalie Barbir, winning 4-3 (5-4), 4-1; while NSW-based right-hander Tyra Calderwood beat Chloe Costello 4-3, 4-1.
After dropping the first set, Nicole Hoynaski came home strongly to beat Tammy Srbinovski 3-4 (5-2), 4-1, 4-1.
The women made it a clean sweep in the doubles with Bai/Calderwood too strong for Osborne/Caitlin Billingham winning 4-0, 4-1, while Hoynaski/Keir didn’t drop a game against Chan/Bianca Chidrawi 4-0, 4-0.
Team manager Annabel Ellwood said it was an impressive start to the Velocity campaign.
“It’s a great start for the women’s team, the girls played really well,” Ellwood said. “It shows some promising signs for the weekend when the competition will only get tougher.”
The men’s team only managed one doubles victory in their competition opener.
Alex Bolt, the 19-year-old AIS-scholarship holder, lost his singles match in two close tiebreak sets after tying Feeney at 3-all, while Andrew Zedde, from Bruce, lost 4-1, 4-1 to seasoned campaigner Nick Lindahl.
In a battle of the retirees, Alun Jones was pipped 4-1, 1-4, 4-0 by Ryan Henry, while rising teenager Nick Kygrios was outclassed 4-2, 4-1 by touring professional Matthew Barton.
In the doubles, Bolt and Zedde salvaged some pride for the men’s team beating Barton/Mitchell Pritchard 4-1, 4-2, while Jones/Damien Ward lost in a super tiebreak to Henry/Luke Bourgeois 3-4 (3-5) 4-2, 10-4.
Jones said the loss would make them more determined for the home ties on the weekend.
“We were up against a really tough team tonight, we gave it everything but fell a little short,” he said. “We will learn from this experience this weekend.”
Canberra Velocity will play their first home ties of the new domestic league competition in a double-header at the National Sports Centre in Lyneham on Saturday and Sunday.
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