2022 League Information

The 2022 season has started with two fantastic wins - firstly on Monday night, as the Mixed A Team defeated Kirby A 5-4 at Home, followed by a whopping 7-2 victory for the Mixed B team away at West Mersea A on Wednesday evening. Congratulations to the teams - let's hope these are the start of many victories for the club this season!

Fixtures for all matches and the teams are now confirmed. Home matches will be played at the club on Mondays and Thursdays, so do come down and watch some entertaining play even if you aren’t involved in the matches yourselves. We have registered 10 teams in total for the leagues - five men’s, three ladies and two mixed teams so there will be plenty of tennis to enjoy. The format is back to home and away matches vs each club in the division, following last season’s reduced matches due to Covid. The cost to players is £5 a head for home and away matches, which covers lights, new balls and light refreshments. Tennis teas will consist of tea, coffee on demand, squash for those who prefer a cold drink and a piece of cake.

Tennis Mingle and Future Events

Our tennis season kicked off with a bang with a very successful Tennis Mingle on Saturday 19th March. It was great to see so many players at the club getting to know each other and enjoying a drink and some nibbles. Thanks very much to Loess from the committee for the excellent organisation.

Our next event will be the fun tournament on Saturday 7th May. Look out for information about how to register your place via email shortly.

2022 Dates for the Diary

Fun Tournament – Saturday 7th May

Fundraising Tournament – Saturday 4th June

Wooden Racket Tournament - Sunday 3rd July

Charity Tournament – Saturday 30th July

Club Finals Day – Sunday 18th September

End of Season Dinner – Saturday 1st October

Christmas Jumper Tournament – Tuesday December 27th

Winter League Roundup

Thanks very much to our captains, who did brilliantly encouraging players to venture out into the cold and dark to play their matches!

Ladies - captain Christine Long

Although the team unfortunately didn’t record any wins, a lot of the games went to tie breaks including two in the last match, so they were very closely fought. All games were played in a good spirit and it gave less experienced players a chance to play with more accomplished players.

Mixed - captain Nick Moore

Playing in often harsh wintery conditions, the Mixed Doubles team managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of success, until an win excellent win in the last match. Despite the lacklustre scores the team had fun meeting and getting beaten by a diverse bunch of players from around the area and comparing other clubs to our own. The final victory ensured the team didn’t finish bottom - well done!

Men's - captain Tom Thatcher

Although the team struggled to get players for some matches, they still managed to fulfil fixtures and enjoy the matches.

Congratulations to Otto!

Officer’s Club member and reigning Officer’s Club Men’s Singles Champion Otto Friedlein is currently aged 14 and ranked no. 40 in the country for under 16s and ranked no. 16 for his actual year group. What does this mean? Junior tennis age groups are split into two-year bands and Otto is in his first year of the 14-16s age group known as u16s. 

The tournaments available to juniors are arranged by age group and by difficulty so Otto is currently playing in a variety of u16s, u18s and Open (Men's). The difficulty is graded so grade 5 is a very local tournament, grade 4 is considered county level, grade 3 is regional and 2 and 1s are national level. Otto is going to his first 16s grade 1 this weekend.

He had a great start to his u16s campaign - winning 19 matches in a row over Christmas. He's playing in Boston (Lincs), Redbridge, Garons (Southend) and the National Tennis Centre over Easter. His standout win recently was in an u18s grade 3 event in Nottingham where he knocked out the no 2 seed in his run to the final and then beat the 6'6" no 1 seed in the final itself. Huge congratulations to Otto for this momentous win. We can’t wait to hear of your future achievements.

Here is Otto with US Open champ Emma Raducanu who he met at a recent tournament - he's clearly mixing in the right circles!

Committee Update

Ikuko White has stepped down from the tennis committee after many years of sterling service. We would like to thank her very much for her hard work over the years, which among many other things includes putting in place the new recycling scheme below. Two new committee members Loess Overbury-Tapper and Jon Way have recently joined the committee. We are delighted to have them on board. 

Player Profile - Loess Overbury-Tapper

I’m an enthusiastic (but less than competent!) tennis player, having come to the sport in later life. I have joined the tennis committee with a view to helping promote tennis activities at the Officers’ Club and I’m looking forward to seeing how it all works on the committee. Having previously irregularly played at Spring Lane Tennis Club, my husband, Martin, and I joined the OC in order to play more regular tennis. We were particularly keen to access more winter play under floodlights and also to enjoy the fun of having bar and restaurant facilities. Although only members for just over two years, we have both loved the sociability and relaxed but competitive ethos of the OC. Outside of tennis, I help run our own firm, Tapper Financial Services, and between us we have four children ranging from 19 to 39 years of age and also a 3 year old grandson. When not playing tennis I love hillwalking, spending time in France, where I have both lived and worked, skiing and reading. Red wine also seems to be a bit of a regular feature in most of the above activities!

Recycling

We are delighted to inform you that we now have a recycling bin for plastics available as well as facilities for recycling tennis balls. This even generates a small amount of income which the tennis committee will use on tennis events and equipment, so please do recycle your old balls when you have finished with them.

Box Leagues

The Box Leagues have continued to be a huge success during the winter months and Ikuko White has done a brilliant job of organising these for a number of years. Ikuko is now stepping down from this role and we would like to thank her for all her help in keeping these going for so long. Christine Long has very kindly agreed to take over the running of the leagues – many thanks in advance to Christine.

These are the categories:

• Ladies singles
• Ladies doubles
• Men’s singles
• Men’s doubles
• Mixed doubles

If you are keen to get involved in the next leagues, which will start from the beginning of June, please add your name to the list on the club noticeboard.

Club Sessions

The committee would like to remind players of the following weekly club sessions. Everyone is welcome, so do come down if you haven’t been for a while:

• Tuesday morning 9:30-11:30am
• Wednesday evening 7-9pm
• Saturday 9:30-11:30am

Defibrillator

We wanted to remind all members that we have our own Defibrillator stored safely behind the bar. A defibrillator can help save the life of someone experiencing a sudden cardiac arrest. The defib is portable, easy to use, with clear step-by-step instructions.