Theron's departing gift

PIETER THERON has the won the Caversham International Channel Islands men's closed singles title before jetting off to Monaco. The tournament saw the best eight men, women and double pairings battle it out for the respective honours. The South African beat fellow Guernsey team member Pat Ogier in the final at Jersey's Les Ormes indoor tennis centre at the weekend.

The coach has spent the last three-and-a-half years in the islands and at the end of November he is moving to the principality to work for a small trust company.

Ogier suffered from racket problems as Theron took the match 7-5, 6-4.

'He started brilliantly, knocking me off the court,' said Theron.

'I didn't see the ball for the first four games but I relaxed a lot more when I was four down and then he had to change his racket. It takes at least a game to get used to new strings and he started to get frustrated because he let his lead slip.

'He handed it to me on a plate. I played really well and I didn't drop off.'

Theron had no problems beating Kiwi Chris Hickling 6-1, 6-3 in the semi-finals, while Ogier took care of Jersey's Gareth Roberts 7-5, 6-0 in his to set up a re-match of last year's final.

Ogier started the match like a house on fire and did not miss a ball for the first four games, making his coach Theron look more like a ball boy than an opponent and taking a commanding lead of 4-0 in the opening set.

Unluckily for Ogier at that point, he broke his first set of strings and was forced to change rackets and this break in concentration let his opponent back into the match.

Theron seized the momentum to level at 4-4.

Both players held serve for five-all with Ogier having two set points in the 10th game of the set. But Theron held his nerve and kept attacking on the big points, keeping the pressure on his young charge.

Then came the turning point: Ogier broke his second set of strings in game 11 and subsequently ran out of rackets and had to get a similar demo one from the pro shop.

Clearly frustrated and not used to the tension of the borrowed racket, Ogier made a few unforced errors handing the break to Theron which held on and served out the first set to take it 7-5.

In the second set Theron kept up the pressure and while Ogier was still trying to get to grips with his borrowed racket, the second set slipped away slowly but surely, with Theron finally winning it 6-2.

It was a sweet moment for Theron, seeing that it was revenge for last year's loss to Ogier due to injury.

'Seeing that Pete is leaving the Channel Islands, I felt obliged to give him a present,' said Ogier afterwards.

'We will all miss Pete. His contribution to my development as a player and CI tennis as a whole has been significant.'

The two finalists teamed up for the men's doubles in which they got through to the final to face Hickling and Roberts.

It was a tough affair with Theron and Ogier finally winning 7-5, 6-4.

Hickling's serve was a major weapon during the encounter and seeing that he has been struggling with it for some time, shows that he has finally shaken off the tennis 'yips'.

The biggest upset in the women's singles event happened in the quarter-finals in which UK-based Claire Randell beat Alderney's Catriona Rizzuto 6-2, 6-1.

She could not repeat this success in her semi-final that she lost to Caesarean Sarah Jones in two straight sets.

Jones went on to meet veteran Guernsey player Jo Robinson in the final and both women initially struggled to hold their serve. Robinson's strategy was clearly to keep the rallies short and to look for any opportunity to advance to the net and this seemed to work well as she won the first set 6-2 and led 5-3 in the second.

At that point Jones began to find her form and managed to prolong the rallies and make better passing shots with the result that she managed to steal the second set 7-5.

The opening games of the third were extremely hard but the Sarnian narrowly managed to win and establish a 4-0 lead to go on to win the set 6-3 and take the match.

Robinson also tasted success in the women's doubles with her partner, Jacqui Hunt, as they overcame Francesca Dubras and Laura Cuddon 6-4, 6-1 in the final.