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AUTUMN TOURNAMENT SCHEDULE
Hello everyone, we hope that you had a great summer and are suitably rested and ready to get playing tennis again at Spencer. The junior squads and Friday socials will restart on September 8th and we're waiting on the fixtures for the adult Surrey Winter Leagues to be published.
We are also running a series of tournaments that may be of interest to you. All finals to be played on Saturday November 1st. Please note that you are welcome to enter any of these tournaments even if you know that you cannot play the final on November 1st. If you get to the late stages of a competition, it’s customary to concede the match to your opponent at match point if you’re not able to play in the final.
AUTUMN TOURNAMENTS
This Autumn we will be running the annual Handicap Singles Tournaments for Men and Women. It’s a fun format where each player is given a handicap (e.g. starting each game at -15) to even the contest. Closing date for entries is Saturday 6th September. The draws will be live on Sunday 7th September. As there are no seeds it will be an open draw and the organisers will contact each pairing with their handicap before each round is played. Each match is a single long set to 10 games. There are no tiebreaks so victory must be decided by 2 games.
We are also running Men's and Ladies Clay Court Open Doubles Tournaments. There will be seedings determined before each draw. This is a best of three sets format with a Championship tie-break (i.e. first to 10 points) to be played should the score be one set apiece. Closing date is September 6th with the draw going live on Tuesday 9th once seedings have been decided.
Finally, in response to a number of requests, we are trialling Men’s and Ladies Over 55s Singles Tournaments with a view to making it an annual event if we get a good number of players. This will be a one-set shootout with a tiebreak at 6 games all. Closing date is September 6th with the draw going live on Sunday 7th.
All 6 tournaments will be run on the MatchSpace tennis app. If you have not used it before, it's free to download and easy to use. Once downloaded, you need to register with the Spencer Club and the registration code you need is BGSFL-6135. If you are already registered on the app, you will see that these new tournaments are already available. To enter either of the doubles’ events, your partner must be on the app and you enter as a pair. If you don't have a partner, just register on the app but don't enter the tournament. Just contact Dave who will assign a partner for you and then you can enter. Good luck everyone!
As always, Dave will be able to assist with any questions and you can contact him on headcoach@spencertennis.com
WEDNESDAY ADULT SOCIAL SESSION
A reminder to all members that the Wednesday adult social is now one single session which runs from 6.45pm to 10pm. You no longer need to book for this session and you can drop in anytime from 6.45pm and play for as long as you like. There is always a coach on duty to organise players into fours and we do our best to ensure that everyone is included and that the sets are well balanced.
UPCOMING EVENTS/COURSES
JUNIOR AFTER-SCHOOL SQUADS: These will commence on the w/o September 8th and run for 14 weeks with a break for half term in October (where we will run a holiday camp for one week). The squads will be available in the COACHING section of this website by July 28th.
JUNIOR SOCIALS
The Friday after-school kids socials have finished for the summer holidays but will start up again on September 12th. The sessions are 4.30-6pm for Orange Ball 6-12 years and the social for the older children begins at 6pm and finishes at 7.30pm. As before, no booking is required and you pay £10 cash (non members) or £5 (members) on arrival for this popular, fun session.
SUMMER TERM AFTER-SCHOOL SQUADS
We are happy to announce that the summer term after-school squads are up on the website and available to book. We hope to welcome everyone back and thank those who attended our programmes in the cold and wet autumn/winter months. Here’s hoping for a drier few months! Our after school squads are open to members and non-members.
Due to the early Easter this year the summer term is a rather long 14 weeks with a break on the week of May 27th for half term. You are signing up for 13 sessions.
START DATE: Monday 15th April
LAST SQUAD: Thursday 18th July
Timings: We have kept to the timetable that we had for the Spring camps with only one exception. The Thursday Orange Ball session has been moved from 4.30pm and will now start at 4.45pm instead.
Pricing: We have left the pricing for most squads as they were but there have been increases of £1 per session for some squads where we have added another coach and for others where the small squad size meant that the session was not financially viable. We hope this is acceptable to you.
You can find the full list of our summer term squads in the COACHING section of our website under Junior Squads or you can use this link: Spencer Lawn Tennis Club / Junior Squads (lta.org.uk)
JUNIOR TENNIS
We have entered some junior teams for the Surrey Leagues this year and our coaches will be talking to kids and parents over the coming weeks to see if we can get some keen boys and girls to represent Spencer against other clubs. Feel free to contact any of the coaches if you're interested in your child taking part.
We are also hoping to organise some internal tournaments for juniors with a finals day taking place in May before the half term. Again, get in touch if you want your child to take part but it's likely that our squad coaches will be getting kids involved over the next week or so.
IN OTHER NEWS........
Huge congratulations to our club captain Viv Ngan who is now a Surrey Champion! Viv won a tough final of the Women's Over 35 Singles last weekend. These titles are very, very difficult to win so well done Viv on such a great achievement.
MEMBERSHIP ANNOUNCEMENT
The club is at full capacity and is no longer able to accomodate any new, off-peak or junior members. We are also closing our membership waiting list until a full review of the list has taken place.
Balls and Strings
Tennis balls are now available for sale behind the bar and cost £6 per tin. For those of you who don't know, Seb (coach) is our resident racquet stringer and provides an excellent service using top quality strings. If he's not around you can leave your racquet with any of the coaches who will make sure he gets it. If you need an overgrip or a replacement grip just ask Dave who can do it on the spot for you if he's not on court.
Also worth mentioning that we do have quite a few 2nd hand adult racquets, some new childrens shoes and some new junior racquets for sale. Proceeds from these will be sent to the Wandsworth Food Bank.