South Africa won the test series against the Netherlands when they scraped through 17-15 after the fourth test played in Fish Hoek, Cape Town ended in a four all draw. Both teams were evenly matched with the series resulting in a narrow 5-3 win for South Africa in Welkom followed by 3 consecutive 4 all draws in Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth and Cape Town.
Once again the South African men overpowered their Dutch counterparts with Rodney Durbach defeating Dylan Bennett in an entertaining four game encounter. Steven Coppinger was in rampant mood against Bastiaan Meulenbelt dropping only 6 points while in the longest match of the evening Clinton Leeuw accounted for Tom Hoevenaars in 5 games to give the men’s host side a 3-0 win.
Meuelenbelt, the Dutch number 2 under 19, who for the third consecutive test played two matches, edged through in five games against Western Province’s number 1 junior, Rudi Willemse, to earn a valuable point for the Dutch.
The Dutch women spearheaded by the World’s number 2 player, Vanessa Atkinson, and former South African Annelize Naude, ranked 16 in the world, had the measure of the South African women. Atkinson dropped 5 points against Diana Argyle while Naude was involved in a four game encounter with Karen van der Westhuizen winning 9-7 in the fourth.
The Dutch third string, Margriet Huisman pocketed the first game 9-3 against UCT student, Siyole Lusaseni and then saved 3 game points in the second game before taking it 10-9. Lusaseni then dominated play winning the third game 9-3 but unfortunately Huisman had to concede the fourth game and the match as a result of an ankle injury.
In the junior women’s clash Milou van der Heijden, the Dutch number 1 under 17 had little difficulty in accounting for Milnay Louw in straight games to give the visiting women’s team a 3-1 victory which balanced the South African Men’s 3-1 victory.




