December 2025 Update

It’s Winter !!

So the winter has definitely arrived, traditionally this would be the time where a large proportion of our tennis users would stop their tennis until the longer warmer days return in the spring. It would appear there is less of a drop in numbers than in previous years, a sign tennis has taken a grip of more players than in previous years. It may be that the improvement in sports and wet weather clothing gives more confidence to players to continue through a cold/wet weather period.

In terms of the court’s performance, once the court has become wet, players should adapt their movement accordingly – meaning it is perfectly ok to continue to play but it is inevitably more slippery than when it is dry, so players need to be more careful. Since the courts were resurfaced it has to rain pretty hard for puddles to form on the courts, and even when it rains hard, the courts are drained no more than 10 minutes after the rain has stopped. Many a time recently I have watched the regular players play through a rain shower……..

New additions to our team

Many of you will know Finlay Bourke, who has been learning tennis from scratch for the past year. Finlay’s main job is in Marketing and has agreed to join our team to help improve all things media/marketing. This will be apparent for anyone who has been following these updates and looks on our website. Already Finlay has redesigned all our signs at the courts, created a new logo, started a new Elthorne Tennis Instagram account, revamped the website and helped with various marketing campaigns. There's a lot more to come too. Welcome Finlay !!

Finlay will also be involved in a new growing part of the business – junior holiday sports camps, that we will be introducing this coming Easter. More info about this in my New Year Update…

James Killick joins our coaching team, he has played at Elthorne from a young age and has taken up a coaching role whilst he is attending University. You’ll see James in the evenings and at the weekend. He is available to give individual lessons and can be contacted at 0739950461.

New Toilet

The continuing frustration with the new café not being built has motivated me to explore the possibility of installing the septic tank for the eventual use of the toilet for the main café. If I am able to install all the groundworks it enables me to install a temporary building over the pipes so a usable toilet solution can be found. This will incur expense but the work has to be done and the funds found anyway, so we might as well be getting on with it as soon as we can……

I’ll report as soon as I have an answer from my council colleagues.

Price Increases for 2026 and Early Bird Deals

Court and Coaching prices will increase from 1st January 2026, please see a table of the increases here.

For those of you who love a good deal, I am running the Early Bird Voucher Campaign again this year. Following the success of previous years I am giving away even more this year than before. The vouchers will enable anyone to choose the 6for5/13for10 sessions/courts at this year’s price. Vouchers are listed on the Coaching Tab of the website and must be used by the end of June 2026. You can buy vouchers for court hire, Adult Drop-in Coaching Sessions and LiveBall sessions. If you have any questions about the deals, please contact me on 07876221259

Box Leagues and Teams

I am pleased to report the recent Adult Singles Box League was a huge success, with nearly every match played within a very competitive Box League. A new round of the Singles League will be run at the end of January, beginning of February.

Before then we will be running both a Ladies Doubles Box League and a Men’s Doubles Box League. These 2 Leagues will start around the Christmas break and run through the January period. Please enter online through the LTA Competitions website. Click here to visit the website to record your entry.