Over the weekend of the 14th-17th of April the Scottish Inter District Team Championships were held at Kilgraston School in Bridge Of Earn. The eight districts of Scotland were each represented by twelve players who competed against each other over three different age groups. Representing the Tayside team were three of WANT tennis club juniors; Katie McKay, Niamh Grogan (18u) & Andrew McMahon (12u). Lead by team captain (and WANT’s head coach) Steven Birrell.
On the 12u’s first day they had a close battle against the Central district. After a tough first singles match Andrew and his teammate put out a great performance and managed to win the doubles against two strong opponents. However, after losing 3 very close matches in tiebreaks the 12u team lost to central 4-2.
The next day they went on to play for 5th-8th position against the Borders team. They all played some amazing tennis with Andrew winning both his singles and doubles match as the 12u’s beat the Borders 6-0. On the the final day the 12u team competed against the Ayrshire district for 5th/6th place. Again some great tennis and long matches but Andrew narrowly lost out in his doubles match after a close match tiebreak. Overall the team just lost out to Ayrshire 4-2 finishing 6th place.
Tayside’s strong 15u team managed to win their group to get to the final. They also had some very close matches and lost narrowly to the West of Scotland team 4-2 so finished 2nd place overall.
Over the first three days Tayside’s 18u team competed against East of Scotland, Borders and the North East teams with both Katie and Niamh winning 6 out of 6 matches boosting the team through to the final. On the last day the team came up against the West district in the final. After both the girls and boys pairs losing close matches in the doubles rounds, Niamh put out a great performance and managed to win her singles match but like the 15u team the 18u’s also narrowly lost out to the West 4-2 to finish 2nd overall.
After a great weekend of competing the whole Tayside team finished 2nd place overall (out of 8 teams). Brilliant effort from all the team and big well done to Andrew for winning 3 out of 6 of his matches, Katie winning 6 out of 8, Niamh winning 7 out of 8 and a special shout out to Steve for finishing off 8 out of 8 slices of Dominoes pizza🤣
Team List ;
12u
Lucas Bradley & Andrew McMahon
Anna Sloan & Emily Warren
15u
Oli Anderson & Alex Mann
Amy Hudson & Freya Cooper
18u
Marcus McLaren & Nicholas Bradley
Katie McKay & Niamh Grogan
Captains ;
Steven Birrell & Kirsty Robertson