Sunday 6th of September saw the first of the annual club championships with 16 players going for the singles' title. Two of the main contenders - Jon Horlock and Sam Coombes - were not playing, which arguably made Billy Craven a favourite. Weather forecast was dreadful and it wasn't clear until the last moment, if the tournament would go ahead. Luckily, a short shower early in the morning stopped and didn't return until the very last game of the final.
Competition started with four groups of 4 playing a round robin to determine the pairs for the knockout stage. Starting at 3:3, it was a good warm-up for the next stage and there were no surprises - Billy, Simon, Luke and Matt have all won their groups as top seeded. First eliminations came after the last 16 round - Austin, Mike, Pete, Brandon, Vinny, Alex, Elliott and Anthony, all becoming spectators. Half of the matches went to tie-breaks and two of the closest battles happened on the hard courts. Matt was struggling to play against Alex, but composed himself at the right moment to beat her in a very close tie-break. Andrey was leading Austin 6:1 also on tie-break, then lost 6 points in a row to face a match point, before coming back to win 9:7.
Quarterfinal pairs:
Simon - Andrey, Ben - Billy, Luke - Paul, Matt - Adi
Ben played brilliantly his match, knocked out Billy and got Matt in semi-final. The other two making it through were Simon and Luke.
Semifinal results:
Simon bt Luke 7:5
Matt bt Ben 6:4
Final between Simon and Matt was a high quality match - both players attacking at every opportunity. Matt fell a break behind twice, but managed to level the match. The title was decided on tie-break and Matt has played his best to beat Simon and become Glossop tennis club's singles champion 2020!