The IOM Men’s County Tennis
The team travelled to Frinton-on-Sea, to compete at this year’s County Cup Event. The team consisted of Andrew Maxwell, Nick Reeder, Herman Oberholzer, Nerijus Gricevicius, Adam Pyatt-Coppell, Orry Farnworth and Sean Drewry (captain). The event took place on Frinton LTC grass courts, a surface our players only normally get to play on at Summer County. A long week of tennis, all doubles matches, where each County puts forward 3 pairs of players to play each day against another participating county.
First match up for the IOM on the Monday was Cornwall, where after a slow start, getting used to the grass surface, they came away with two wins, Adam & Neri beating Joss Bailey/Jake Horton 6-4 7-5 and Orry & Sean defeating Joel Fern/Jake Horton 6-3 6-1. Final score a 7-2 win for Cornwall.
On the Tuesday they played a strong Oxfordshire team and despite pushing them close in matches, Oxfordshire were 9-0 winners.
Wednesday it was the South of Scotland, a lot of the matches could have gone either way, but South of Scotland ended up winning 7-2, the two Manx wins came from Orry & Sean, defeating Adam Clunie/Grant Semple 7-5 6-4 and Gregor Morris/Thomas Taylor 6-3 6-2. Adam & Neri lost two very close matches, especially against Morris/Taylor going down 7-6 7-5.
Thursday saw the IOM take on the Channel Islands, they pushed the Channel Islanders hard in all matches and took 3 wins, Adam/Neri bt Tim Shute/Zac Taylor 6-0 6-2, Orry/Sean securing another two wins against Chris Goulding/Tim Shute 6-0 6-1and Jesper Jenson\Jonathan le Feuvre 6-3 6-2
The final day was a very close contest against Cumbria with the Cumbrians just edging it 5-4, it could easily have gone the other way as Andrew/Nick just lost out to Richard Byle/Noah Harrison 6-4 6-4 and Adam/Herman going down 6-4 7-5 to Joesph Wilkinson/Alexander Teckkam. The four wins came from Adam/Herman and three wins for Orry/Sean who played a great match to defeat Cumbria’s number one pairing of Louis Glaves/Chris Whittle 6-3 1-6 10-5.
A great week of tennis with everyone achieving better results this year compared to 2023