To view the photos as a slideshow, click on one of them. Click on the bottom right of the image to view the next one, bottom left to view the previous one and centre to leave the slide show.
Click here for all the results
Finals weekend, as always, was a great event. The standard of play was very high with nearly all the matches being very closely contested, with the final score not reflecting the quality – and length!- of the rallies. Special mention goes to the marathon Ladies Vets Final : 7-6, 4-6, 7-5, won by Ailsa Fraser and Sam Williamson and the Boys U12 Final : 7-6, 7-5 won by Oliver Mills.
It is always good to see the Juniors and Seniors competing on the same weekend; Sunday saw the total spread of ages with both the Super Vets (Over 60) Mixed Final and the Under 10 Singles Final. The stand-out feature to my mind was the Juniors play. All the competitors looked very accomplished with powerful, consistent hitting with variety of strokes. I followed the U16 Boys match and if you were for some reason only able to see the ball but not the players, then you would never know that it was Juniors rather than Seniors playing. They were a credit to themselves and to the coaching team.
Congratulations to all the players, especially to those who won two Finals : Debbie Ryder, Stuart Lamb, Sam Williamson, Will Jones and Chloe Tarling.
Finally, our thanks go to Zana for organising all the tournaments; it must be a massive task. Also thanks to Debra Norton and her team of helpers for providing lovely refreshments throughout the weekend.
| Event | Winners | Runners-up |
| Mens Singles | William Jones | Harry Bywaters |
| Mens Vets Singles | Daren Carter | Jeff Wollen |
| Mens Doubles | Matthew Jones & Will Jones | Steve Dunne & Chris Iles |
| Mens Vets Doubles | Stuart Lamb & David Pharo | Daren Carter & Richard Kurlej |
| Event | Winners | Runners-up |
| Ladies Singles | Gill Stoney | Sarah Henbrey |
| Ladies Doubles | Debbie Ryder & Jane Vincent | Gill Stoney & Isabel Williams |
| Ladies Vets Doubles | Ailsa Fraser & Sam Williamson | Debbie Ryder & Jane Vincent |
| Event | Winners | Runners-up |
| Mixed Doubles | Stuart Lamb & Debbie Ryder | Mark Elliott & Gill Stoney |
| Mixed Vets Doubles | Chris Iles & Sam Williamson | Jeff Wollen & Sally Grace |
| Mixed Super Vets Doubles | Peter Archer & Jill Penton | Derek Carder & Sally Stow |
| Event | Winners | Runners-up |
| U10 Singles | Oscar Callaghan | Oliver Casselton |
| Boys U12 Singles | Oliver Mills | Jacob Diskin |
| Boys U14 Singles | Freddie Schlag | Jacob Diskin |
| Boys 10.1 – 10.2 | Jacob Diskin | Oliver Mills |
| Boys U16 Singles | Matthew Tarling | Max Jenkins |
| Boys U18 Singles | Sean Cronin | Matthew Leys |
| Event | Winners | Runners-up |
| Girls U14 Singles | Amber Callaghan | Nina Roddick |
| Girls U18 Singles | Chloe Tarling | Georgie Charles |
| Girls 10.1 – 10.2 Singles | Isabel Cann | Savannah Cockerill |
| Girls U18 Doubles | Georgie Charles & Chloe Tarling | Willow Cockerill & Emily Pagan |
Click here for photos
There will be some great matches taking place commencing at noon on both days. Refreshments will be on sale throughout the afternoon. Please come and support our finalists. Friends and families welcome. Click here to see the programme of finals.
We had a great turn out of spectators last year and they all seemed to have enjoyed the tennis.
27 brave souls turned out for the Albany Trophy tournament on the hottest August Bank Holiday Monday on record. The tournament is essentially an American tournament with the mixing-up of partners over six rounds. There is though a twist in the scoring system to even things up during play;straightforward really once you get your head around it, but a bit beyond me to describe clearly here.
We had joint winners in both the Ladies and Mens section : Sally Charlton and Sam Rush in the Ladies, Andrew Mundell and Pete Smith in the Mens. The runners up were Andy Cholerton and Sam Williamson. Well done to them all. Special mention for Andrew playing in his first tournament and to Andy for being a prize winner in all three of the tournaments he participated in.
Our big thanks as always to the ladies who provided the splendid tea – Debra Norton, Ann Hanson and Jill Penton. Not sure there was that much tea being drunk, it was mainly orange or lemon squash with lots of ice.
Next American tournament will be on Easter Monday 2020. In the meantime, there is Finals weekend to look forward to. The standard of play from both Seniors and Juniors is always very high. All spectators welcome!
All five of our Ladies teams were successful in the Summer League. The Ladies A team came second in the Premier Division. OK, that is not first but they were up against an incredibly strong Brightwell squad who have comfortably won the division for the last three years. Our team finished well ahead of their closest rival for second place.
The Ladies B team won Division 1 and have been promoted. Well done to them! They won all their matches and secured their top place with a match to spare.
The Ladies C team, also in Division 1,had been promoted from Division 2 last season. It is notoriously difficult to retain your place when you move up but they did it easily, finishing 3rd out of the 6 teams.
Both the Ladies D and Ladies E team were in Division 4. The Ladies D team ended in second place, thus earning promotion. They had a slightly nerve-wracking end to the season but they secured their promotion place in their final match in which they won all of their sets. This is the first season that we have put out a Ladies E team. It was good to have so much interest in playing that we could manage to do this. They performed creditably ending mid-table.
Well done to all the players and a big thank you to the team captains.
Well done to our finalists in the Handicap Finals. This is always a good competition as the handicapping system ensures that everyone has a chance of winning through. Well done especially to Cath Pearson who retained the Mixed Doubles trophy with a new partner and to Wendy Day who competed in all three finals, only just missing out on a clean sweep of the trophies.
| Event | Winners | Runners-up |
| Ladies Singles | Wendy Day | Cath Pearson |
| Mens Singles | Harry Bywaters | Feredico Ardiles |
| Ladies Doubles | Wendy Day and Zana Fletcher | Rachel Grey and Debra Norton |
| Mens Doubles | Mark Hill and Mike Thornley | Peter Archer and Nick Ward |
| Mixed Doubles | Cath Pearson and Mark Elliott | Wendy Day and Chris Cole |
To see the results of all the matches throughout the competition, click here
We called it our Fun Day and it certainly was fun! We combined special events with a visit from Robyn Moore who has set herself the challenge of hitting 200,000 balls in 30 days, fundraising for the BreakPoint charity with the help of Bright Ideas in Tennis. This was her first day; she had already spent the morning at the Calthorpe Park tennis courts and spent a further 4 hours with us on the hottest day of the year so far. Gosh, that seems like a huge challenge! Good luck to her. Of course, to meet her challenge she needed the help of our ballboys and ballgirls to keep replenishing her ball machine
Bank Holidays come thick and fast at this time of year and we had our third of the season on Monday 27th May. Another great turn-out, 10 men and 15 ladies which gave everyone a lot of good tennis. The ladies section had joint winners in Wendy Day (playing an American for the first time) with Gill Stoney. Debra Norton was runner-up. The mens section was won by Andy Cholerton with Mike Thornley and Chris Cole as joint runner-ups. Congratulations to them and especially to Gill and Chris for their third “podium finish” of the season. Many thanks to Cath Pearson and Alison Jameson for providing the lovely tea and a special thanks to Caroline Reid who happened to be the only player sitting out for the round after the tea interval; she quietly got on with all the washing up and clearing away!
Public holidays are rather close together at this time of year, so on Monday 6th May we were once again enjoying an American Tournament; 27 people this time, showing how popular they are. Does the photograph of winners look familiar? Gill Stoney was again the best lady with an average of 5.6 from each round of 8 games, just edging out newcomer Sam Rush on 5.5. Cath Pearson was 3rd. Chris Cole was a clear Mens winner with an excellent average of 6. Mark Hill came second on 5.17 with a tie for 3rd place between Steve Dunne and William Carlisle on 5.0. No Andy Cholerton in the winners group this time, for the simple reason that he was the organiser. Thank you Andy for taking that on. Thanks also to Ann Hanson and Joan Jones for supplying a lovely tea.
A full house for another great evening! Many thanks to Vicky for providing such a good quiz and to all the others who helped run the evening. Special mention to Richard Leversuch who runs the bar and quietly gets on with washing up all the glasses etc, leaving very little for the rest of us to do at the end of the evening. This time, there were also two league matches being held – so over 70 people at the club between quizzers and players! Many thanks to the Mens A and Mixed D team and their visitors who were very obliging and didn’t seem to object to losing access to the main clubhouse room.
For the first time, two teams ended up on the same number of points, but Vicky was prepared for this with a tie-breaker question. Andy Cholerton and Alistair Reid were “volunteered” by their teams to go up and hear the question which was “To the nearest inch, what is the length of da Vinci’s Last Supper mural?” Well done, Andy for being nearest. Spot the photo below where we are waiting for the answer to be announced. Well done also to the Quizzical Quintet who won the prize for the best team name.
Thanks to the generosity of all who came, we will be able to make a donation to Robyn Moore when she visits us on June 1st as part of her Breakpoint fund-raising.
Our ball machine is now available for use. It is kept in the clubhouse and there have been two briefings about its use. Some members have already received a key to access it; others of us will be receiving a key soon. There is a manual left with it. Please look at this! Spinfire_Pro2_ManualFor your convenience, here are three screenshots about changing the settings eg for elevation (how high over the net the ball is sent). I think that the ball machine will retain the settings last used, so if a player much better than you used it last, then you might need to change things!
(Click to enlarge the image)
This Easter was the warmest for many years and gave us an excellent start to the American Tournaments this season – perfect weather and a perfect number of players : 24, 10 men and 14 ladies – which meant nobody had to sit out; we all played the 6 rounds of 8 games each. Andy Cholerton came out as the best male player, beating Mark Hill and Chris Cole by just one game overall. For the ladies, there was little doubt who would win – Gill Stoney returning to the club after a break of a few years because of injury. She only dropped 7 games out of 48 all afternoon – well done, Gill! Katherine Rogers and Susan Gilchrist were second and third in the Ladies respectively.
Gill’s success was one highlight. The other was, of course, the tea – maybe the reason some of us come. Many thanks to Linda Robson and Jackie Staunton for preparing it and to Ann Hanson and Sally Daniels who came to help set it out and more importantly to clear up afterwards.
It was the first American Tournament that I have organised – and it all seemed to go smoothly. Phew!
