He is well respected for his sportsmanship, and has gone out of his way to be available for tournaments and representative fixtures for his adopted province. Low has been a consistent runner-up in Otago tournaments, having won the consolation event at the Otago Open two years ago, then losing the final to Harry James last year. This year, he lost the final to rising Canterbury star Adam Hornby. He also lost the Otago indoor final to Hungarian Janos Manyai.
Although in Dunedin for only part of the summer, Low has committed to the provincial programme, and flew back from where he was working in Auckland to play for Otago in the Southern League in Queenstown at the end of last year. Another factor in the award is the work he is doing with junior development elite squads.
Hume (17) was an obvious winner. She won the Otago Open and Indoor Open and also won the club title with her team. She played club tennis in Christchurch, as well as Auckland and North Harbour, sometimes flying back to Dunedin to go straight on court after a Friday night match in the north. With lesser competition available in the women's ranks during student vacations in Dunedin, Hume commuted to Christchurch for Saturday play mid-season. Hume made playing for Otago a priority and was unbeaten for her province in singles. At national level, she was a successful member of the Southern 16s team in 2012 which won the national title.
Because of the progress she had made, and her wide range of results and success against leading players of many major provinces, Hume was also named as most improved female player of the year. The most improved title for males went to Paddy Ou (15), who ended the season with wins over the two top-ranked men in the province. Ou had been No 3 or 4 for his school team which won the South Island finals last season and he had occasional successes at senior club level. This season he fought his way to the top spot for McGlashan. He proved a very hard player to beat, battling long and hard to add to his increasingly strong record.
