ALBANY TENNIS CLUB NEWS by Pat Sharp

29 March 2023

Great news about Billy Harris, the Island’s top pro player and a member of Albany. Last week he reached the final of a Challenger event in Barcelona, coming through qualifying before beating players from Ukraine, Spain, Argentina, the No1 seed, Mark Purcell, from Australia in the s/final and Hugo Grenier from France in the final.

He then played a challenger event in San Remo, Italy on clay but lost in the First rnd.1/6 1/6 to Jozef Kovalik (Slovakia who is ranked 153 – whilst Billy was ranked 373 last week and is now 304!  This week he has a few days practicing on clay, before returning to Spain to play another challenger in Murcia and then another event in Madrid the following week. For Billy it certainly, is a case of “have racquet – will travel”. I can remember when he was in his early teens and Pat Cash visited Albany for about an hour, betweenpromotional engagements and he talked to Billy and Aswin Lizen. I think they were about 12/13yrs and he obviously filled both of them with the desire to play pro- tennis. It certainly worked for Billy.

Another Albany member, pursuing his tennis career, is Orry Farnworth (15), currently on a tennis scholarship in Suffolk. This weekend he is playing in a grade 1 event (16&u) at Roehampton. Then, the 2nd week of April a grade 2 National in Wrexham, then he has events in Wimbledon before going to Liverpool with his coach, Sean Drewry for Doubles practice, then to Wrexham and the Wirral before returning to the Island.