Christ Church and St Michael “B” will battle in Saturday’s finals of the National Sports Council’s Inter-Parish Road Tennis Competition after both teams qualified in contrasting styles on Sunday night.
In a contest rescheduled from Saturday night due to rain, St Michael “B” easily disposed of St George with Michael Jean defeating Lloyd Burke 21-18, 21-6, and Leon Carter putting down Andrew Goodridge 21-17, 21-15.
On the other hand, Christ Church with top seed Anthony ‘Ears’ Mitchell in their line-up, had to battle all the way to sneak past the St Michael “A” duo of Curtis Jones and Allan Davidson. The first match saw Davidson scoring an extended but expected win over Ian Yearwood 22-20, 21-12.
With Mitchell meeting the resolute Jones, Christ Church needed the win to force the tie-breaker with the hope that Mitchell’s name would be pulled to play that decider. Jones stunned Mitchell in the first set 21-12, before losing 12-21, to see the game going into the third set.
That proved to be a heart-stopper for the Christ Church supporters with Jones matching and at times bettering Mitchell shot for shot, as the scores were locked from 15 right up to 21 before Mitchell limped home 23-21.
The tie-breaker then came up with Mitchell drawn to meet Davidson.
The dreadlocked and confident Davidson seemed to be holding the advantage as he powered to a 12-9 lead before collapsing to Mitchell’s determination 14-21.
