Martinborough are in the box seat to lift the Shirley Corlett Trophy after the fourth round of Regional One Interclub on Saturday.
With one win in the doubles and four wins in the singles in the round hosted by Ōpaki, Martinborough extended their lead to six points over Dry River and are well-placed to lift the trophy in next weekend’s final round.
The experienced pair of Ed Wilkie and Marco de Groot got the ball rolling, scoring a valuable three points with a tough 5–4 5–3 win over Ōpaki combo Boon Huxtable and Mike Jackson in their doubles clash.
In the singles, de Groot had two wins, firstly over Jackson 4–2 4–1, and then Troy Crout [Dry River] 4–0 4–2, while Chris Wilkie was also unbeaten in singles, dispatching Carterton’s Matt Spooner 4–0 4–2 and William Orsborn 4–2 4–1.
Niel Henriks from Dry River maintained his perfect singles record and didn’t drop a game in 4–0 4–0 drubbings of Huxtable and Ed Wilkie.
In other first-round singles results, William Day beat Ed Wilkie 4–1 4–2, Zac Chang [Dry River] beat teammate Crout 4–2 4–5 10–0, and Orsborn beat Ōpaki’s Duncan Oakley 4–1 2–4 10–6.
Other second-round results were Huxtable over William Day 4–1 4–0,while Spooner beat Jackson 4–0 5–3, and Oakley got the better of Zac Chang [Dry River] 5–3 4–1
In the doubles, wins also went to William Day and Orsborn, who beat Chris Wilkie and Chang 4–1 4–2, and Henriks and Troy Crout, who were too good for the Ōpaki pair of Oakley and Richie Day, winning 5–3 4–1.
The final round will be played on Saturday at the Dry River Red Clay Complex.
Points: Martinborough 82; Dry River 76; Carterton 68; Ōpaki 45.
