Sport
11 October, 2024
Gripping finals
AFTER an exciting first week of finals at the Cairns Pro Tour that number one seed Talia Gibson and the seasoned Japanese player Rio Noguchi claimed the tournament, now we gear up for another nail-biting weekend of top tier tennis.
An unforgettable week of tennis finalized at the Cairns International Tennis Centre last Sunday with two amazing battles that saw Townsville’s Lizette Cabrera go down against Talia Gibson 6-2, 7-6(2), in a match that had the audience on the edge of their seat and a high-stakes battle between Australia and Japan with Blake Ellis and Rio Noguchi where the Nippon player ultimately took the win.
Despite the strong local support for Cabrera, the match ended in a tight tie break after 1 hour and 26 minutes contest.
Gibson’s win is following back-to-back wins in Perth, a winning run for the Western Australian over the past three weeks.
After gracious acknowledgements in her post match interview, speaking to her recent victories Gibson said the secret to her success has been, “a lot of hard work, and of course, thanks to my team who are a big part of how well I have been doing in the past few weeks.”
The Men’s Final was equally gripping, with Blake Ellis and Rio Noguchi going head-to-head in a high-stakes showdown. Ellis, despite an intense week of both singles and doubles, captured the first set. However, Noguchi fought back to take the match in three sets 6(5)-7, 6-4, 7-6(4), delivering a spectacular finale to week 1 of the Cairns Pro Tour.
Although exhaustion is setting in, the players are giving the best in the court on week 2 to take the glory in week 2.
The competition already saw our local heroes bow out of the competition coaches Matthew Duffy and Cooper Asquith bow out in the first round with fellow local, Sienna Jensen also falling short to redeem herself and losing to the number three seed Kanako Osafune.
Emerson Jones continues to make her way through the competition and will strive to make it to finals in week 2, while a focused Tai Sach also hopes to make it further into the competition in the second week of competition.
Singles quarter finals and doubles semi finals will take place this morning from 11am, this afternoon there’ll also be a twilight match and community barbecue, while Saturday will see singles semifinals and doubles finals, and finally the epic singles finals matches on Sunday from 11am.
The players are still fighting for a combined prize of $100,000 USD and invaluable world ranking points.
For more information, visit www.tennis.com.au/protour
