Some of our best results this year were achieved by our men’s teams and the Saturday mixed which is played later in the year. The men’s first team matched their three wins from last year and will once again be playing in Division 2 in 2019. The men’s second team who were relegated last year were perhaps looking for a few more than three wins in Division 5. Three wins was enough to keep them in division 5, and with some new members taking part this year, things are looking up for them in the future. The mixed team should be proud of their two wins after being promoted to division 1, we also had a bit of luck on our side as Doncaster conceded one of their matches which meant we avoided second to bottom relegation place, literally by the skin of our teeth.

On paper we appear to have plenty of men to pick from but finding twelve to play regularly on a Saturday has on occasions been challenging, We entered a second men’s late summer team in the leagues this year which in its self didn’t have a detrimental effect on putting out teams as the main difficulty came in finding strength in tennis ability opposed to strength in numbers. Putting out teams on a Saturday to keep both a mixed and a men’s late summer team in division one proved difficult and the men’s team will unfortunately be relegated to division 2 next year. The newly formed men’s second team fared better in division 3 with four wins from ten matches.

Sadly there were more relegations to come; it was always going to be tough for our ladies with all three teams enjoying promotion last year. What we hadn’t banked on was not winning a single match; the ladies didn’t let this dampen their spirits with everyone taking on the challenge of playing a higher level of tennis. Fortunately the ladies fared better in the late summer divisions with the first team finishing mid-table and holding their positon in division two after last year’s promotion, their most notable win being against second placed Bamford, the second team also enjoyed two wins even though one of these included the match top placed Beauchief conceded to us when they couldn’t field a team.

Perhaps the most frustrating of all was being relegated from the second division of the midweek mixed where we finished fifth out of six teams, this was despite our percentage rubber count being noticeably higher than the two teams placed above us. Four of the matches were lost at 2-2 in rubbers, two of these were by just three games.

Being relegated is obviously disappointing but this is often the knock on effect of having a very successful previous year, we will bounce back and hopefully next year we will once again be celebrating promotions and possibly some league wins.

As always a big thank you goes to all our team organisers and captains who do such a fantastic job.