Dear members,
First of all, I would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to once again organise our mini Wimbledon event, in particular for the players from the Serbian and Croatian community in London, together with our Pensford club members.
Like in the previous years, we have organised some doubles and singles for the recreational, ex professional (young and old) players as well as coaches on Saturday 29th June, 4-7pm.
The ultimate aim would be to see Novak Djokovic on the courts of the Pensford tennis club but guess we will need to be patient and wait for him to win few more grand slams before he is allowed to come and visit us 😊.
Nevertheless, we had some great guests, who played and had fun with us (not just made an appearance to say hello) featuring Princess Katarina and Kaja Stoisavljevic playing together against others in an exhibition match.
Princess Katarina, a descendant of Queen Victoria, and her grandmother, a sister of Prince Philip (mother side), whilst equally a member of the Serbian royal family on her father’s side. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Katarina_of_Yugoslavia
Kaja Stoisavljevic is an 11 year old who is currently the number one British player under 12 and whose older sister Mika (15 years old) played in the Wimbledon ladies qualifying a few weeks ago for the first time.
As if this was not enough, we were also privileged to have Biljana Veselinovic who is Katie Boulter’s current tennis coach (current British number one tennis player), Jelena Kostanic, an ex player who reached top 30, as well as Dino Marcan, an ex top 300 player in the world but now a player’s agent. Aubrey Barrett who has coached many professional players (and my first coach in London) was also present.
As the photos will show, like at the real Wimbledon, Pimm’s and strawberries were popular throughout the day.
The event would not have been complete without some traditional food and drink until small hours in the nearby restaurant.
All in all, it was a fun day and hope the tradition will live on for many years to come.
Sincerely yours.
Dragan
