The Salmon Arm Slammers slammed the competition at the Miele Provincial Team Tennis Championships over the weekend.
Shirley Knorr, Loree Boyd, Cynthia Langford, Marietjie du Plessis and Marianne VanBuskirk won the Division 2 Ladies 3.5-4.0 provincial championships held at the Whistler Racquet Club in Whistler.
Team tennis matches are played in a best-of-three series consisting of one singles match and, if needed, two doubles matches where the other four players must compete.
Playing the singles matches was du Plessis, while the other four women strategically rotated pairings to best compete against their opponents.
Team Salmon Arm won their first two matches of the opening round-robin against two separate teams from West Vancouver, before defeating the Victoria Net Assets.
Despite only playing three of the four round-robin matches, Team Salmon Arm was able to secure first in the standings and a spot in the provincial finals.
The Slammers lost their final contest of the round-robin in a tough match to Team Nanaimo, but still retained their first-place standing.
The championship match went to a thrilling last set tiebreaker against the West Vancouver Night. Team Salmon Arm prevailed, coming back from a set down to win the provincial title 4-6, 6-4, 13-11.
The men’s side of the tournament in Kelowna was contested by Salmon Arm’s String Theory: Kevin Pearson, Ken Hecker, Dan Wark, George Elamatha, Detlef Doose and Carl Bannister.
Despite a disappointing tournament against challenging opponents from Kelowna and the Lower Mainland, there were a few bright spots in the String Theory’s play.
Wark was able to pull off two well-fought singles wins, while Elamatha and Pearson defeated the Coquitlam Young Guns in a 10-7 thrilling tiebreaker in the String Theory’s lone doubles victory.
