The  Men’s singles trophy was presented to the club by Mr and Mrs A S Johnson and first won in 1930 by N H Bloom, but it had not been played for since 2012.  There has been a resurgence of interest in playing singles at the club this year and it was decided to hold a competition to see who would claim the venerable trophy 88 years after it was first won.  The event was played on one day in good weather, with eight players taking part. A “compass” draw was used which means all the competitors played 3 matches, giving everyone a good day’s tennis. 

The matches used a shortened scoring format: Sets were first to 4 games with a lead of at least 2 games, 7-point tie break at 4 games all, 10-point champions tie break at 1 set all.

Luke Coltman and Kyle McLellan each won their first match to contest one semi-final. This was a very close match, being decided by 11 points to 9 in the champions tie break with Kyle emerging as the winner.  Mike Massey beat Joe Buckley in the other semi-final.  Kyle won the first set in the final 4-1, but Mike rallied in the second set but lost it narrowly 5-3.  Luke won the 3/4  playoff, with Joe taking him to a champions tie break to decide it.

After losing in the first round James Clemens, Simon McAsey, Rob McNinch and Nigel Spratt played off for 5th place, with Simon proving to be the strongest.

The trophy was presented to Kyle by Club Chairman John Doe who acted as referee.

Thanks go to Top Nosh who sponsored the event.