Todd Larkham led the Canberra Velocity men\u2019s team to a place in the Asia-Pacific Tennis League conference final with victory at Sydney Olympic Park tonight.<\/p>\n
Larkham, who was a late call-up after Nick Kyrgios withdrew with a hip flexor injury, dropped only three games in his first competitive singles match in eight years against Marious Zelba.<\/p>\n
The men\u2019s team finished second in the NSW\/ACT conference after beating the third-ranked Canterbury Bankstown Wizards 5-1.<\/p>\n
Alex Bolt dropped only two games against former professional Allen Belobradjic, who was once ranked 146 in the world, while James Frawley completed an impressive 4-2, 4-1 victory over 2002 junior Wimbledon champion Todd Reid.<\/p>\n
Making a return from injury, Jake Eames lost a thrilling match to Michael Tebbut 1-4, 4-3 (5-3), 4-2.<\/p>\n
Larkham then teamed with Alun Jones in the doubles to defeat Zelba and Patrick Rynsaardt 4-2, 4-2, while Bolt and Frawley beat experienced duo Matt Mullane and Mark McCook 4-3 (5-3), 4-0.<\/p>\n
Larkham, the team manager, said he was delighted with the win after two team changes in two days.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are excited to be in the final,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a great result, particularly after losing Nick this morning, and Andrew Zedde was a late withdrawal (due to exams) as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Velocity will meet the highly fancied ATP Sydney team in the conference final on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
The women\u2019s team narrowly lost its first tie of the round-robin competition to the highly fancied Asia Pacific Tennis Institute Steelers.<\/p>\n
Alison Bai could only win two games against fellow professional Stephanie Bengson, while Trudi Musgrave was too experienced for Velocity\u2019s Tarlina Tipungwuti, winning 4-1, 4-2.<\/p>\n
Velocity then levelled the tie when talented 18-year-old Nicole Hoynaski defeated Angelique Svino 4-0, 4-2, and Tyra Calderwood came from behind to beat Julia Moriaty 2-4, 4-1, 4-3 (5-2).<\/p>\n
However, the Steelers claimed victory by two sets when the teams split the doubles.<\/p>\n
Bai\/Calderwood lost to Monique Adamczak\/Bengson 4-2, 4-3 (5-2), while Hoynaski teamed with Imogen Clews to beat Moriarty and Renee Beck 2-4, 4-2 (10-2).<\/p>\n
In a repeat of tonight\u2019s match, the women\u2019s team will play the Steelers in Tuesday night\u2019s conference final after both teams finished in the top two.<\/p>\n
Team manager Annabel Parolo said it will be anyone\u2019s match on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will be a great final as there\u2019s nothing between the two teams. Tonight\u2019s matches showed that,\u201d Parolo said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Todd Larkham led the Canberra Velocity men\u2019s team to a place in the Asia-Pacific Tennis League conference final with victory at Sydney Olympic Park tonight. Larkham, who was a late call-up after Nick Kyrgios withdrew with a hip flexor injury, dropped only three games in his first competitive singles match in eight years against Marious […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5910,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5910"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4764\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}