The Victorious Auckland Team

Front: Henry Tam, Michelle Chan, Renee Flavell, Xu Li, Lynne Scutt,

Back:   Rune Svenningsen, Clare Chapple, Donna Haliday, Kevin Dennerly Minturn, William Bok, Nathan Hannam

Results: vs Waikato 8-8 (21-16), vs Canterbury (15-1) vs Waitakere (10-6))

Auckland you can be very very proud of this team.  Backing up from last year to win two Wisden Cups in a row is a huge and rare effort.  However even that does not tell you of the strong and special spirit within this team of the loud and fantastically vocal support off court of the courage on court when at times it looked like victory would be elusive - especially in the earlier Waikato match.

Saturday: Auckland vs Waitakere (Win 10-6):  Waitakere had a mix of world class players Daniel Shirley and John Gordon with top young talent Ethan Haggo, Caterhine Moody, Danielle Barry, Mary O'Connor, Simon Koo, Ashraf Dhoray, Kritteka Gregory and Emily Ang. Key victories in the Mens part were major bonuses leading into the mixed doubles and the girls dominated.  There were key turning points here too - Michelle and Renee coming back strongly in the third set, Donna and Xu Li unbeaten in doubles in all ties.   Henry and Xu Li losing the first set winning the 2nd 25-23 and then the third by 3  points Kevin and Henry taking a key doubles match to put  more pressure on.   

Friday:  Auckland vs Canterbury (Win 15-1): Alfred Wong had a great match against Rune and Rebecca Jury a close set against Clare Chapple as did Greg Bray and James Bishop in their matches.  Alot of the 1st sets were close but overall the Aucklanders were too strong for the Canterbury team.  Meanwhile Waikato played Waitakere in a key match in terms of match ups between the two teams a match with Waikato won 10-6.

Thursday: Auckland vs Waikato (Win 8 all 21 sets to 16): There were so many key turning points.  In the Waikato games everyone's matches were critical - taking a set if they lost was important in the final 8 all result.  Clare Chapple's singles, William Bok and Renee in the mixed, Rune in the singles playing no.1, Nathan and Henry's doubles, the pure desire of this team to work hard for everything.  This match showed the young talent from the Waikato such as Bjorn Seguin, Oliver Leydon-Davis, Michael Fowke, Amanda Brown, VINA just back from a serious knee injury to combine with NZ players  Craig Cooper and Joe Wu and Deyanira Angulo just back from the Olympics representing Mexico.  Alot of the losses were by only 2 points but Auckland took key sets which ultimately won them the Wisden Cup.