GSFT NEWS

Stellenbosch

Stellenbosch, South Africa. – Trent Botha and Jessica Simpson were the victors on finals day at Stellenbosch where the SAS Junior ITF 1 tournament came to an end on Saturday. Inclement weather on Friday had forced the boys and girls under 18 finalists to return to the tournament venue on Saturday, and this time the matches were concluded without further interruption. 

The 17-year-old Simpson emerged as the first winner of the day after she disposed of the challenge of the top-seeded Janet Koch 6-1 6-1. When play was aborted on Friday, Simpson had already clinched the first set 6-1 and on Saturday she won by the same margin, although she had a different challenge to contend with. On Saturday Koch changed her game plan and opted to attack Simpson’s back hand more often than not, but again she found Simpson up to the task.

 As the week wore on this Simpson’s game became progressively sound and on Saturday she bagged the title without surrendering a set in the tournament. Simpson’s serve also showed an improvement on Saturday, and she the second set wound its course she became increasingly aggressive. Her all-court performances this week showed that Simpson had overcome a knee injury which side-lined her for much of last year, and now she’s headed for WTA events later this year in Kenya and Potchefstroom. 

Anthony Harris, Simpson’s coach said afterwards that his charge had managed to eliminate unforced errors from her game. “She seemed to sum up the match situations well, and her shot selection was spot-on,” said Harris. “She is continuing to serve well and she’s generally showing lots of positive attitude in the way she plays. “She just needs to step up her game with each tournament, and she’s in for some testing times later this year.” 

Simpson was back on court soon afterwards for the doubles final in which she was paired by Emmanuelle de Beer of Mauritius. She again tasted success as together with De Beer they defeated the top seeds, Nicole Dzenga of Zimbabwe and Elizabeth Kapari of Ghana 7-6(4) 6-1. The Simpson/De Beer pairing were forced to work hard for their 7-6 first set win but in they came into their own in the next as Dzenga and Kapari, who are both from the ITF/TSA Training Centre in Pretoria, failed to halt their opponents’ victory charge. 

In the boys final, the unseeded Trent Botha arrived with a one-set advantage following a sound start to his match against third seeded Christiaan van der Burgh on Friday. However, Van der Burgh was a different proposition at the start on Saturday when he managed to bag the second set, and forced the match into an extra set. By this time Botha managed to regain his composure and once he secured an initial service break he rounded off challenge with a comfortable 6-2 margin for a 6-2 2-6 6-2 triumph. Van der Burgh returned for the doubles final and this time he tasted success, along with partner Jan-Willem Kleynhans.

As the second seeds, they were up against the highly promising 15-year-old twins Francois and Okkie Kellerman, the top seeds. The contest was a real ding-dong battle and eventually it was decided by a tie-break after each team had won a set. The Kellermans clinched the first set with a 7-4 tiebreak and their opponents stormed back to clinch the next set 6-2, forcing the contest into a championship tie-break which went Kleynhans/Christiaan van der Burgh’s via a 12-10 score line.

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