Manawa Rakete-Shea (12) out-performed his seeding by reaching the final of the national 12 and under championships in Hamilton at the weekend.
Rakete-Shea, formerly of Dunedin, transferred to the Queenstown Tennis Academy to train under Lan Bale.
He lost the national final to Macsen Sisam (Auckland), who recently won the Australian junior title for his age. Sisam lost only eight games in five matches in reaching the final and continued his dominance, winning 6-1, 6-0.
Rakete-Shea, the fourth seed, beat three other seeds in his path to the final, and one of those, Jamie Garbutt, of Canterbury, went on to win the feed-in consolation event.
Peter Hartono, of Dunedin, won the playoff for seventh and eighth after being eliminated in the quarterfinal, while Bjorn Pollock, of Queenstown, made the semifinal of the consolation event.
Both boys' and girls' winners were most impressive. Valentina Ivanov, now training in Australia but registered through Canterbury, adding the 12s title to the 14s she won earlier. She also won her final 6-1, 6-0 and lost only nine games in her five matches.
