Wanaka’s big week of annual tennis tournaments began last weekend (Saturday January 2) with the Wanaka Open, followed by the Junior Open (January 4-8), and it finishes this weekend with the Senior Doubles 35+ tournament (January 8-10).

Fifty-one players lined-up for The Stonewood Homes Wanaka Open Tournament and had to battle surprisingly stormy weather on the first day which delayed some qualifying matches until the second day - “a very odd occurrence”, tournament coordinator Nic Jenkins said. 

While there were only 11 entries in the women’s singles and seven in the women’s doubles, the local champion Ines Stephani returned to successfully defend her 2020 Open Women’s Singles title and take home the doubles title as well.

Top seed Ines proved too strong, dropping only four games across three matches to win the women’s singles against third seed Sophie Mcdermott, 6-1, 6-1.

Ines then teamed up with the club’s head tennis coach and multiple NZ national tennis title winner Amanda Trail in the women’s doubles and, together, they lost only two games in the semi-final, and completely dominated the final against Sophie Mcdermott and Felicity Oxnevad to win 6-0, 6-0. 

Wanaka Open Women’s Singles winner for 2021, Ines Stefani (left).

Ines’ success at the Wanaka Open is something of a swansong. Having won a full tennis scholarship at Drake University, a Division 1 college in Iowa with a strong women’s team, she leaves next week to start her US college tennis career. 

In contrast to the women’s outcome, the men’s winners were not so clear cut. 

There were 31 entries in the men’s singles and 16 in the men’s doubles. Defending men’s singles champion Sky Lovell didn’t return to Wanaka this year but top seed Matavao Fanguna, a newcomer to the Wanaka Open, dominated the men’s singles event winning comfortably in two sets all his singles draws as well as winning through to the semi-finals of the men’s doubles with Dwayne Cleugh.

Tongan Matavao, who regularly competes successfully at the Auckland Open Tennis Championship, won the Wanaka men’s singles title in a close match against former Queenstown player Peter Hartono.

Third seed Peter had taken out second seed Paddy Ou in the single’s semi-final 6-1, 7-5 on the last day of play and an hour later returned to court to take on Matavao in the final, which ran for almost two hours, eventually going down to Matavao 6-4, 6-4.

Brothers Peter (left) and Thomas Hartono won the Wanaka Open Men’s Doubles 2021. 

Matavao didn’t make a clean sweep of the men’s matches, however.

In the men’s doubles local Wanaka club member and tennis coach Perry Crockett, defending his doubles title earned last year, teamed up with Wanaka Open regular Paddy Ou to upset the top seeds Matavao and Dwayne Cleugh in the semi-finals, winning 7-6(4), 6-2.

The men’s doubles final though was a different story as Perry and Paddy fought hard but eventually conceded defeat to the Hartono brothers, Thomas and Peter, 6-4, 7-6(5). The brothers, who were both at Otago University last year, had made a clean sweep of the men’s doubles competition winning all four of their matches.

“We had an extremely strong field in the Men’s Draw, with the top eight seeds closely ranked and it was anyone’s guess who would finish the winner,” Nic said.

Nic attributed the Wanaka Open’s success to attracting a lineup of top seeded players to the tournament. Getting the word out early to give players time to register and organise accommodation was one of the reasons “we had such a strong field of players”.

“It was great to have so many great local players from the Southern region, but also players who travelled from the North Island [such as] the number one seed in the men’s singles, Matavao Fanguna, [who] travelled from Auckland to take out the Wanaka Men’s title,” Nic said. 

With the Wanaka Open 2021 finished, the Wanaka Tennis Club focused on the Craigs Investment Partners Junior Tournament, which ran for four days from January 5-8, with contestants ranging in age from 10 to 14-years-old.

There were 125 entries across the 12 junior events and club captain Jeanette Hatten said quite a few out of town juniors had registered to play this year.

The Junior Tournament preceded the Quartz Reef Senior 35+ doubles tournament which begins today (Saturday January 9) and finishes tomorrow (January 10).

The Quartz Reef Seniors tournament with its three events (men’s doubles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles) “is hugely popular as many people from out of town come every year for this”, Jeanette said.

Wanaka Open Tennis finals results:

Open Men’s Singles winner: Matavao Fanguna; runner up Peter Hartono

Open Women’s Singles winner: Ines Stefani; runner-up Sophie Mcdermott

Open Women’s Doubles winners: Ines Stefani and Amanda Trail; runners-up Sophie Mcdermott and Felicity Oxnevad

Open Men’s Doubles winners: Thomas Hartono and Peter Hartono; runners-up Perry Crockett and Paddy Ou.

PHOTOS: Supplied