Kirsten McArthur

ANDREW Evans and Kirsten McArthur are keeping Jersey’s hopes in the tennis competition alive.

They beat Rhodes pair Paraskevi Chatzimichali and Minos Marinakis 6-1, 6-1 to progress to the quarter-final of the mixed doubles with their reward today a match against Roser Pons and Joan Salord.

The other mixed pair of Matt Harris and Rebecca Edwards suffered a shattering loss in their opening match as they went out to Saaremaa’s Mihkel Kruusmagi and Kersten Vanem after winning the first set 6-3 but then losing the second 6-4 and the championship tie-break 11-9.
Speaking afterwards both pairs agreed they were desperately disappointed to lose the match as they had high hopes of progressing.

‘It is really disappointing,’ said Harris immediately after, ‘We were better than that and shouldn’t have lost but it’s tough because we are better players. We just don’t get enough match practice in Jersey.

Edwards said: ‘It was a tough match and we should have beaten them as I don’t think they’ll go further than the next round but at least we still have one team to cheer on with Kirsten and Andy.’

Both Jersey ladies had earlier been knocked out of the quarter-finals of the singles event by clay court specialist players from Menorca with Edwards losing 6-1, 6-0 to Francisca Sintes and McArthur going out in just over two hours to Gemma Triay Pons 6-4, 6-3.

James Connolly and James Faudemer were knocked out of the first round of the men’s doubles, losing 6-2, 6-1 to the strong pairing Eduardo Torres and Mica Koll.

Katie Gouyette and Eva Moynihan suffered a similar fate in the quarter-final, having received a bye in the first round, as they went out to Isle of Man pair Laura Gardner and Katie Tinkler.