Maureen O'Berg, playing the best tennis of her life, completed a hat-trick of titles over the weekend during the BLTC Invitational Tennis Championships at the Coral Beach & Tennis Club when she teamed with husband Ron Groff to turn back the challenge of the top-seeded and favoured defending champions Gill Butterfield and Brian Way 6-3, 6-3.

It was a culmination of a week-long run of successes, and the final one could not have been sweeter because it was revenge for last year's loss in the semi-finals to the Bermudian pair.

Butterfield, who earlier teamed with Jo Tucker to take the Ladies 40 Doubles Crown, was gracious in defeat. "She made only one mistake during the entire match," Butterfield said. "At first the strategy was to play her, but she proved to be too steady so we changed and started to attack Ron with little difference because Maureen was everywhere returning everything we hit over the net."

O'Berg, who captured the Ladies 50 Singles crown by defeating Lisa Cashin, then teamed with fellow American Janet Green to take the Ladies 50 Doubles title, was beaming with pride following the day's final match, which was interrupted by rain for nearly a half hour.

" I am playing the best tennis of my life at the moment," she said. "I am playing more confidently than ever before, especially since I started a weight training programme and while it may not look like it because I have slim arms, but my shoulders don't seem to get tired when hitting so many balls as before."

The defending champions started off positively with Brian Way holding at 15, then the champions promptly broke Groff at deuce for a 2-0 lead. But from then on it was all downhill when Butterfield was broken when up 40-15. This seemed to unnerve the champions and the O'Berg-Groff partnership sensed this and upped their play with O'Berg hitting a cross court slice that nipped the tape before surprising Way with a backhander down the line just as he moved across in a bid to attack her return.

With the score level at 2-2 Way, showing the ear form his tremendous comeback victory in the men's singles over David Lambert, was a shadow of himself, and his stroke play showed that. While he was unable to muster the guile or strength to outmanoeuvre his opponents, and Butterfield not being allowed to pick up the slack, it was only a matter of time before it was over.

With the score 4-2 Butterfield held to close the gap to 3-4 only to have the Americans take the next two games for the first set, breaking Way to love for the win. The second set, like the first was knotted at 2-2 but the turning point in the set, and possibly the match, came in the sixth games when Way double faulted twice, the second time on break point to give his opponents at 4-2 lead.

Groff 'sealed the deal' with an overhead shot that was wide to Way's backhand.

Butterfield admitted that she and her partner were second best on the day. "She (O'Berg) was the difference," she said. "She was just overwhelming, she was everywhere. There was nothing we could do. On the day they were just too good."

It wasn't a total loss for Butterfield, nor Way. Butterfield and Jo Tucker took the Ladies 40 Doubles crown win a 6-1, 6-2 victory over Ann Manning and Linda Suderman, while Way came from a set down to beat David Lambert for the Men's 45 Singles title 5-7, 6-4, 6-1.

Possibly the day's only real surprise came when Ann Prosser not only beat the favoured Jo Tucker to take the Ladies 40 Singles title, but that she came from a set down to achieve victory. Tucker took less than 20 minutes to wind the first set 6-1, but she was unable to hold that advantage, losing the second set 7-5 and wilted in the third going down 6-2.

The Bermudian pair of Veronica Dunkerley and Mark Cordeiro won the Mixed Doubles final with a straight sets 6-4, 6-2 victory over Janet Green and John Johnston.

See page 22 for full results from Saturday's finals.