Winter Club Tournament 2019

The annual trek to the Delta Tennis Centre, Swindon is a much looked forward to event and is always a good competition, alongside food and drink while members catch up with each other after the Christmas and New Year period.  The mixed hanidcap system also produces close matches between all pairs.

This year entries were reduced slightly, allowing the competition to be split into two phases, a group stage, followed by knockout rounds.  Each randomly drawn pair is allocated a handicap starting point for each game, from -40 to +40.  Depending on where a pair starts from they may need to wn more or less points in order to win a game.  Each match consists of 8 games, with a cumulative total for each pair running over the group stage.  The top 4 pairs from both groups then go into the quarter finals

While all this is going on, food and drink were consumed by players sitting off, as each player brings a plate to add to the buffet.  The competition proved to be close, with the majority of handicaps being accurate and producing tight games, many decided by sudden death deuces.

After the group stage the top 4 from both groups went through to the quater finals to play their reverse opposites (i.e. 1st against 4th).  The winners of group 1 by a comfortable margin were Carl Orlans and Geoff Edwards, while group 2 was won on a head to head countback by Bryan Young and Ginny Dalrymple over Tony Ambridge and Karen Perrett.

The knockout rounds were played over 5 games, with a final over 7.  Bryan and Ginny advanced to the final with Paul Hoskins and Jancis Dawe coming through from group 1 to overcome Carl and Geoff in the semi finals.  The final was a close affair going with serve until the decisive break came at 3-2 to Bryan and Ginny, clinching the match 4-2 to claim the Niblett trophies.

The presentation was made by last years winners, Tony Ambridge and Jane Newell handing over their titles for some new names to be etched onto the trophies for next year.