AUTUMN 2020 COPY FOR COURIER

News from Uffington Tennis Club

It’s been a lovely summer at the club, despite the restrictions in place. We have been able to take advantage of the long spell of dry weather to get onto the courts, with the highlight being our summer tournament, that we were still able to hold, taking care to observe theappropriate guidelines of course.

On a beautiful sunny September afternoon, 16 players took to the courts and enjoyed a fun and occasionally competitive, few hours of tennis. The final took place between Juliet Moss & Philip Ingles against Annabel Campbell and Robert Hart. The score was close early in the game but Annabel and Rob eased ahead and secured the win again, second year in a row! After the excitement on court, everyone was ready for the delicious BBQ, generously supplied and cooked by Linda and Kenneth Mitchell of Euro Fine Foods. Many thanks to everyone who helped to make the afternoon such a success! 

Our tennis ladder has also been busy and many congratulations to Luke Thomas who was the eventual overall winner. Thank you to everyone who took part and hopefully it allowed for wider participation in competitive games, given the local leagues did not run this summer. 

We had a couple of false starts with attempts at re-painting the court surfaces but we are delighted to now report that the courts have been professionally cleaned and painted and look absolutely fantastic. Please enjoy them!

Just in time for the lifting of lockdown, we were delighted to engage the services of the team from “Game, Set and Matchplay” for the provision of coaching. Dave Tuck and Tom Francis, joint directors of the company, are both very experienced coaches as well as LTA sanctionedcompetition organisers. The team ran their first sessions during August and under the guidance of Level 4 lead coach, Paul Butcher, ably assisted by our own Luke Thomas (currently working towards his Level 2), are now running regular weekly junior sessions for ages from 5-18years old.  Paul has also run some fun adult sessions and is available for private one-to-one lessons by arrangement.

Considering the difficult times we have all been facing it is fantastic that we have managed to get in a busy summer of tennis, and we hope members will keep on playing into the Autumn, albeit with an extra layer on, and of course keeping safe and sticking to the Covid guidelines.