by Steve Howlett | Oct 12, 2018 | County Squads
Please see a list of all the junior events and fixtures our county teams will be involved in this year:
County Cup
U18 County Cup – Friday 1st – Sunday 3rd March 2019
U14 County Cup – Saturday 4th – Monday 6th May 2019
U12 County Cup – Saturday 29th – Sunday 30th June 2019
U10 County Cup – Saturday 25th – Sunday 26th May 2019
U9 County Cup – Saturday 17th August 2019
U8 Regional Event – Sunday 17th March 2019
12 Counties Event
U18s – Saturday 9th February 2019
U16s – Saturday 3rd November 2018
U14s – Saturday 12th January 2019
U12s – Saturday 24th November 2018
U10s – Sunday 9th December 2018
Inter County Matches
U8 , U9 vs Cambridgeshire – Sunday 28th October 2018
U10 Vs Cambridgeshire – Sunday 28th October 2018
U12s Vs Suffolk – Saturday 5th January 2019
U8, U9 Vs Suffolk – Saturday 23rd February 2019
U10s Vs Suffolk – Saturday 23rd February 2019
U14s Vs Bedfordshire – Sunday 24th February 2019
by Steve Howlett | Oct 12, 2018 | Competition
The 14th Annual Louise Willgrass Memorial Ladies’ Doubles Charity Tennis Tournament was held at East Anglia Tennis & Squash Club, Lime Tree Road, Norwich, on Wednesday 10th October 2018, sponsored by REALITY Estate Agents, Grove Road, Norwich.
Reportedly the hottest 10th October ever recorded the players basked in 22 degrees of blue skies and sunshine with merely a gentle breeze! (Last year my report records 18 degrees of sunshine but windy so seems we are always blessed.)
Players from all over our county, Suffolk & beyond made up four boxes of six pairs so everyone had plenty of tennis before the top two pairs from each group went through to the quarterfinals:
Lorna Soar & Wendy Taylor (Culford) beat Holly Elkins & Jo Gowing (Brooke), Frances Hornor & Sarah Walker (EATSC) beat Ann Starky & Alison Gilmour (Cringleford), Judith Lee & Cheryl Buck (EATSC beat Dawn Stocker & Liz Gilmour (Blofield) and Lisa Lowe & Linda Wardle (Cromer) beat Sarah-Jane Bullock & Lisa Bligh (Diss/Beccles).
In the semi-finals Frances & Sarah beat Lorna & Wendy and Lisa & Linda beat Judith & Cheryl.
The raffle was held during a delicious lunch laid on by the club and many thanks must go to the hard work of Sharon, Katie & Alasdair (EATSC’s new manager – I don’t think he’s been in a room quite so full of women before!) but referee Derek Perry is well used to it and manages the event masterfully!
Raffle prizes included a handbag from VANILLA and Top Spin Tennis Racket Stringing Vouchers but were mostly donated by the players themselves.
After lunch a one-set tie-break final was held with Lisa & Linda from Cromer beating the EATSC pair, Sarah & Frances, 6-2.
The prizes of flowers prepared by Libby Ferris (Grove Road)and kindly donated by Lucy Carne of REALITY Estate Agents (Grove Road) were presented by Diane Bush on behalf of Emily Willgrass, daughter of Louise, who attended the prizegiving with her one-year old son, Benjamin.
The £1,000 proceeds of the event will be given to Cruse Bereavement Care Norwich, the chosen charity of the Willgrass family. Becky Bushell from the charity thanked the ladies for their valuable contribution to the much-needed work they do helping bereaved people.
Photo showing L-R Frances Hornor, Sarah Walker, Emily Willgrass & Benjamin, Linda Wardle & Lisa Lowe.
by Steve Howlett | Jul 19, 2018 | School tennis, Tennis in Schools
She rallies is a Judy Murray led initiative where female ambassadors are trained by Judy to the train other females. With the hope to encourage more girls to try tennis.
On 25th June 10 ladies from all over the county attended Norfolk’s first ‘little miss hits’ Course. This course is aimed to teach females to deliver non technical fun starter tennis sessions to 5-8year old girls.
We had a great mixture of coaches, assistants, parents and teachers. The group worked brilliantly together and understood the concept of the course very quickly. For details of future courses please contact Kim Burgess on ksburgess17@icloud.com
by Steve Howlett | Jul 16, 2018 | School tennis
Cromer Tennis Club recently hosted a corporate tennis event for Norfolk Tennis. 8 teams each consisting of 4 players enjoyed a sunny, although rather chilly afternoon on the beautiful grass courts. Teams were made up of local business people and senior Norfolk players. Delicious cakes and tea followed by an evening bar-b-que were provided by the club. The event was won by the ‘Monday Nighters’, a team made up from a group of eight players that have played together for many years!
The event raised in excess of £2000 towards the Norfolk Tennis Schools project. Stuart Silvester, Norfolk Tennis Schools Co-ordinator said ‘We are extremely grateful to participants and also the sponsors, Norfolk Homes, Icarus Hines the butcher and Barclays Bank for supporting this event. Cromer Tennis Club were also generous with their time and contributions in making the afternoon such a success. The money will allow us to expand the thriving schools programme in to new areas of the County’.
Monday Nighters – Richard Elliott, Johnny Chadd, Hugh Beevor and Chris Bradley-Watson
by Steve Howlett | Jul 5, 2018 | County Squads
Over the weekend of 30th/1st July the U/12 Boys and Girls were competing in the Aegon County Cup.
Norfolk Boys and Girls were grouped with Middlesex, Essex, Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, and local rivals Suffolk.
The six teams were split into two groups of 3 with the top two teams progressing to the Semi Finals. The winning team overall would then progress to the national finals.
The Boys started off against the strongest team on paper, Middlesex. Jayden Durham was first on court and raced into a 3-1 lead with some clever play. Unfortunately he couldnt close out the set (playing short sets to 4) and lost in straight sets.
Joseph Philpott played in the next singles match and played some great shots against an experienced opponent. Unfortunately a lack of consistency cost him the match. Our no.1 player, Oli Buckingham Green then played what became the match of the weekend against a player who remained undefeated throughout the weekend. Olly ran and ran and ran, showing amazing resillience to stay in the point. It was a long match and Olly eventually earned 5 match points which he was enable to convert to get over the line.
So defeat against Middlesex was followed by a match with Suffolk. A switch in the team order enabled Remi Pilgrim to come in for Joseph. This time it both Remi and Oli won convincingly to set up a doubles for victory. The pairing of Olly and Joseph lost this and leave the score at 2-2. This meant a doubles tie-break play off was needed, with Remi coming in for Joseph.
It was a fantastic tie-break which Norfolk eventually won 13-11.
On day 2 Norfolk were slow to get started against Essex with quick defeats for Jayden, Remi and Oli. The pairing of Jayden and Joseph played a good doubles match but it was not enough to prevent a 0-4 defeat.
A final match against Cambridge was then played out. Olly was the only matchwinner as the team suffered a 1-3 defeat. Joseph was back in for the singles and again played well to recover from losing the first set to force a tiebreak. Like Olly on Day 1, he stood at match point but was unable to clinch the match.
Overall the Boys played there hearts out and behaved really well. We can all be very proud of there efforts and perhaps on another day we could have finished higher than 4th in the group.
