The last match of the season and we had all to play for sitting in second place in the league, just 14 points behind Columba’s who are in the top spot.

The evening started well with a download of 25 year’s worth of coaching tips and tactics from Fi in the car on the journey to Teddington. One or 2 might have been well received but my concern was that any more might cause confusion among the ladies, and it did!

Many of Teddington’s players were in their teens, some 45 years younger than the older members of our team. We’re in for a trouncing I thought.

Liz & Eva kept a clean sheet winning all four sets and seeing the whippersnappers off very convincingly, despite never having played as a pair before.  

Sue and Lauren won 2 sets and lost their 2 sets against the pair of teen girls. As Sue pointed out afterwards, she hit many winners but they got them all back - what it is to have young legs, good eyes and lightening quick reactions!

As for Fiona and I, we tried all of the tactics not all of which were effective, in truth none of which were effective -
except perhaps Lauren’s - ‘clear your head ladies and just go with the flow’. Now I appreciate that this is not perhaps a conventional teaching point and certainly not one of Love Tennis’s, (I can see Christian cringe as he reads this), but in this instance the tips of our learned Lauren seemed to do the trick!

Coach Charlie had told Fiona she must talk with her partner between points, but really there are only so many ways you can say ‘keep your pecker up’ as you watch the games run away. The Prime power drink however that she produced between sets seemed to add a new spring to her step and off we went to win the second set and draw!

Our opponents from Teddington Tennis Club were delightful and insisted we leave nothing from the buffet uneaten, so we didn’t disappoint filling napkins with sandwiches and sweet treats for the journey home like little children leaving a birthday party. Overall then, another win which brings the season to a close with 5 x wins, only 1x loss, 1x draw and 117 points for the power house that is the Chiswick Ladies Team!

Thank you to EVERYONE who played this season you all contributed to this success - thank you Kirsty for large volumes of homemade vegetable soup, to Lauren and Fi for a broad range of tips and tactics of many different varieties and not always wholly conventional, to Eva well for being just so rock solid, to Katy for taking on bundles of admin I simply didn’t have the headspace for, to Sue for your calm head, to Fiona for your fearsome serve and to Liz a late joiner for your fearsome net play - you’ve all been a joy to play with, long may our new found success continue, next up the winter floodlit league - bring it on!