Ranks swell for annual veterans contest

Entries for this year's Nelson Veterans Tennis Club's annual tournament are well up, with 100 players expected to take to the courts at the Hope Tennis Club this weekend.

Seventy players contested last year's event and this time, Nelson players will face competition from Marlborough, Canterbury and the West Coast entries.

The oldest players this year are Nelson's Jean Walker and Canterbury's Roland Mackley, both 82, while the youngest will be 36-year-old Nelson tennis coach Suzanne Spencer.

The biggest increase is in the women's doubles with 48 players entered. Top seeds will be Nelson sisters and defending champions Susan Rooney and Kate Prebble, who will face opposition from locals Spencer and Tanya Erskine and the Canterbury-West Coast pairing of Janice Hagenson and Sonia Blackman.

The men's doubles has 30 players entered, top seeding going to last year's runners-up, Lee Coram and Peter Hynes from the West Coast.

They'll be facing all-Nelson opposition, including John Dunlop and John Skelton and Berne McNaughton and Ruary O'Toole.

These two pairings recently faced each other in the doubles final at the Hope Tennis Club championships with McNaughton and O'Toole the winners.

Sunday's mixed doubles will see 62 players in action, with defending champions Lynnie Nevin and Coram taking top seeding again, with last year's runners-up, Hynes and Cara Glintmeyer, the second seeds.

- © Fairfax NZ News