Junior Club Championships 2023

U8’s

This year’s internal U8 event saw 6 hopefuls pit their wits in a round robin event. I was really impressed with the level of the kids and they all gave it 100%. There can only be one winner though, and it was Buddy who won all 5 of his matches that claimed victory. He took home the trophy, a gold medal, AND he will see his name added to the junior honours board.

A mention too to the runner up, Will, who received the silver medal.

It was great to be able to run a doubles clinic after the singles was finished - a chance to see how much doubles experience the kids had developed. I was particularly impressed with Aran when at the net position who seemed to relish volleying.

U9’s

Some of the eligible U8’s also entered this U9 event, so we had 6 entries in total. We decided that we would split these into 2 groups of 3 with the top 2 players from each group making it through to a semi-final and final.

In group A it was Evelina who topped her group, winning both of her matches. In group B it was Buddy who won both matches. In group A, Will beat Alex to make it through to the semis in second position. In group B, Alfie beat Scarlett to make it through. A quick mention of Scarlett and Alex who were competing for the very first time ever and did their best on the day. They played a consolation match against each other at the end and it was narrowly won 11-9 by Alex, but Scarlett showed real improvement from start to finish.

So, in the semi-finals Buddy beat Will and Evelina beat Alfie. The final was of a good standard and it was Evelina’s big serves and clean accurate ball striking that saw her prevail 10-4. Evelina has now progressed from winning the U8’s last year to winning the 9’s this year and shows real promise.

U10’s

Not played - not enough entries

U12 Girls

This was a straight final so Abi and Lily played best of 3 short sets to decide who would win this year’s event. The match was a pleasure to watch, with both players trying their best and conducting themselves brilliantly. There had to be a winner and Abi prevailed 4-0,4-1, although the score didn’t reflect how close some of the games were. Well done girls!

U12 Boys

Dara, Findlay, Eshaan, Dhruv, and Luke competed for this year’s U12 boys title. The weather was bad so it was played indoors and the format was one short set to 4 with sudden death deuce. Findlay and Luke had a mighty tussle that eventually saw Findlay beat Luke 8-6 in a tie-break. Dara and Findlay was another close match with Dara just prevailing, again, in a tie-break. The final match of the event would decide the winner and runner up. Dhruv and Eshaan had won all their matches up to this point, so it was always going to be a tense affair. Eshaan eventually got over the line to take the title, beating Dhruv 4-2, but it could so easily have been different. Well done Eshaan

U14 Boys/Girls

Usually we don’t have the boys and girls events running together, but we decided to do this because we only had 1 entry in the girls event this year. The competition was a really close affair with 3 boys having a chance to win going into the final round of matches, which was a round robin competition.

Early on it was Dhruv beating Aayush, then losing to Eshaan, which brought the event to life.

Meanwhile, Eshaan was beating everyone and looking very assured.

Maegan, our only girl entered, was competing well and, although not winning, was taking games off a couple of the boys.

Dara had a match point against Eshaan, but somehow Eshaan came back and won.

The key match was in the final round when Aayush played his brother Eshaan knowing that he needed to win to have any chance of taking the boys title. Aayush stepped up his game and was able to beat Eshaan 4-1. When we looked at games difference, Aayush had beaten both Dhruv and Eshaan who also had 1 loss. Dhruv was runner up over Eshaan by way of a better games for and against ratio.

On the girls side Maegan had already won the title, but had plenty of practice matches to improve her game which is coming along great.

U18 Boys

This event consisted of no.1 and 2 seeds through to the sem-finals with the other 4 players fighting it out to join them.

Tom played Aayush and Tom was too strong on this occasion

Will v Jack was a feisty affair with Will taking the 1st set and was 2-0 up in the second before Jack decided to come to the party and took the 2nd set on a tie-break and won the 3rd in a champ tie-break.

Alfie beat Tom in the semi-final and Ben beat Jack to set up a mouthwatering final.

After some fantastic tennis from both big hitters, it was Alfie that squeezed victory winning 4-3,4-3.

U18 Girls

Not played