Despite the wind and rain we’ve managed to get plenty of on court activity recently. First was the traditional New Year’s Muffler Tournament, which suffered one postponement, but had a great turnout on the re-arranged date. But the food and mulled wine added to the experience! The final was a perfect blend of youth and experience with David Bristow and Christopher Bolton overcoming Robert Stockdale and Mathieu Savin.
The most recent Banbury Winter League matches were played in very contrasting conditions. The first was a home floodlit league match against Deddington C, when the temperature dropped enough for one section of the courts to become an ice rink towards the end of the match. Fortunately Caroline Morland, Sue Panton, Nigel Eaton and Colin Mercer had the better skates and ran out 7-1 winners! That lifted us to 3rd place in a very closely contested Division 3. The next match was in Division 4 of the weekend format and was played in much more comfortable conditions. Charlbury B were the visitors and for this Jen Allen and Geoff Prince joined Sue Panton and Colin. It was all square going into the mixed doubles and with Jen and Colin losing both sets it was left to Sue and Geoff to try and salvage a draw. In a marathon match they won the first set and staged a great recovery from 1-4 down in the second but were eventually edged out 5-7, which gave Charlbury a 5-3, win. Harbury are still top of the league but Charlbury are closing in and have matches in hand.
There is also plenty of activity for our Juniors. Harbury was pleased to host a Warwickshire LTA Boys Mini Green (9 and under) event and welcomed players from Stratford, West Warwickshire, and Beechwood clubs for the first round event. Rhys Bennett and Jamie Smith represented Harbury and played well but narrowly missed out on qualifying for the next round, losing a doubles play-off against runners-up Stratford. A very strong Beechwood pair won the group and will be joined by Stratford in the second round.
The coolsportz coaching programme is going really well and we welcome all standards and ages. It caters for juniors from 4-18 years with the youngest group (Reds) using the Village Hall until the end of March. We now have Junior sessions on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, all of which are open to members and non-members, and the first term time lesson is FREE! There are adult groups on Monday and Thursday evenings with a Ladies’ group on Friday mornings. Individual sessions can also be arranged. For more details contact Lianne Candappa on 07919104093 or lianne@coolsportz.co.uk or check the website www.coolsportz.co.uk for information on times and days of lessons.