League tennis has been badly hit lately by a run of bad weather, which has resulted in a rash of postponements, last week not a single match was played and our Club Nights were also a wet wash out. Our grass courts have had very little use this month because of the rain and we have had good reason to be thankful for the club’s all-weather courts at Braithwaite. It wasn’t until the end of this week that the rain abated sufficiently for Keswick’s ladies’ first team to play on Thursday evening against Lorton’s second team and this was a fixture which had been rearranged due to rain.

Keswick’s first pair, Clare Pinkney and Julie Saxton, made a cracking start and rapidly demolished their opposite numbers 6-0 6-0. Meanwhile our second couple, Rachel Bazire and Sally Huit, battled away in a very close first set, which at 4 games all could have gone either way though at this crucial point in the match the Keswick pair seemed to up their game, breaking not only their opponent’s serve, but also their resistance to take the set 6-4 . With the first set in the bag the girls’ confidence increased and they piled on the pressure to take the second set comfortably 6-1.

At the half way point in the match Keswick were ahead 4 sets to 0 when catastrophe overtook Lorton! In the first game of Clare and Julie’s next match, one of the Lorton ladies tripped and fell awkwardly as she was reaching for a volley and suffered nasty grazes to her chin, lip, cheek and knee and, despite attempts at First Aid, was too badly shaken to continue.

In the circumstances Lorton unfortunately had no choice other than to concede the remaining sets 6-0 6-0, so Clare and Julie spent the rest of the evening as spectators on the sideline.

Lorton’s first pair, despite the disaster and having now lost the match, decided to play on against Sally and Rachel who remained both determined to win and focussed on their shots with the result that they ran out winners quite easily 6-1 6-1.

This was a good result for Keswick ladies, the score at the end of the evening was 8 sets to 0 and 48 games to 7 which gave us another two points on the league table. Keswick remain in third position in Division 1 with one match remaining against Whitehaven Ladies 1st at home on Monday July 10 which will be a tough one.