Rickey “Body Doc” Hoyte showed why he is part of a defending champion Masters’ team as St Thomas stormed into the final when the National Sports Council’s Inter-Parish road tennis semi-finals were completed at the Deighton “Pa” Roach Tennis Centre in Bush Hall on Wednesday night.
Battling annoying interruptions from the rain but none from their Christ Church opponents of Ian “Chicken” Yearwood and Glen “Chicken” Harris, Hoyte and partner Anderson “Chef Andy” Smith cooked any ideas which the two “Chickens” had of roosting in their fourth Inter-Parish finals.
Playing with supreme confidence and his usual panache, Hoyte roughed up Yearwood 21-15, 21-10, with Yearwood looking like a novice while making numerous unforced errors. With such a poor scoreline, Yearwood made things hard for his following teammate and the only surprise of the night was that Hoyte, a police by profession, did not charge Yearwood for loitering on the Bush Hall court.
Needing to beat his opponent in straight sets and under a combined score of 25, Harris strayed from his usual style and rushed the game, handing Smith a 12-2 lead. However, once Harris settled, he proved a tough bird for Smith, locking the scores at 20 and then taking that game 22-20.
But, Harris needed to defeat Smith under five in the second game to gain an almost impossible ticket to the finals. Smith eased to 7-10, which ended the debate with Smith and Hoyte going forward to meet previous champions Andrew “Cripple” Holder and Jeffrey “Bing Crosby” Layne in the finals.
At least Christ Church moved into their fifth successive ‘A’ Class finals, with Marson Johnson playing a top game to stop Anderson “St George” Sealy of St. John with relative ease 21-11, 21-12.
The rains came again before Anthony “Ears” Mitchell and St John’s Adrian “Dan” Skeete could take to the court, with Skeete needing to beat the highly rated Mitchell in straight sets and under a combined 23 points. Skeete surrendered the match and the trip to the finals to Mitchell and Christ Church rather than postponing the match to another night.
Earlier, former 21-and-Under champion and last year’s losing finalist Emar Edwards of St George advanced to the finals by disposing of a petulant Kyle King of St Thomas 21-11, 21-19.
That game was continued from Edwards’ 11-5 lead the previous night.
