News

The Secretary’s Cup is such a wonderful format with players of all handicaps being paired up at random.  This year we had handicaps ranging from 32 to 64. All of the group matches were incredibly close and the 5 pair play off group on the Sunday morning went down to the last match to decide a winner!

The first semi-final was between Kate Rowe & Charles O’Donnell against Martin Fox & Alex Maccallum.  Kate and Charles were just a little too strong for Martin and Alex who had fought through the play off group and won 6/3. The second semi-final was the experienced pairing of Andrew Falk & Robert Dolman against Tim Armstrong & Stuart Allison and it was very close all the way to 4 all and then Stuart and Tim served some very tight railroads to close it out 6 games to 4.

The final really looked like it could go either way and was incredibly close. 1/0,1/1,2/1,2/2,3/2,3/3 and so on all the way to 7 all but it was Kate & Charles who held their nerve to save three match points against them the game before to close it out 8 games to 7!

A big thank you to everyone that played and made it such a great weekend and a huge thanks to Andrew & Sally Falk for tremendous lunches all weekend.

What a feast of tennis we had last week!

32 pairs, 860 games, 72 sets, two markers and over 46 hours of play from Wednesday to Sunday and pairs ranging from handicap 12.6 to 60.3 there were all standards taking part.

With 3 out of the 4 pairs in each group progressing through to the knockout stages it gave everyone a good chance.  On Thursday evening we had a fabulous curry night hosted by David and Carline Fortune and some fantastic play from a very strong group. The strongest group on handicap  played on Friday from 5-9pm in front of a packed dedans, some of which were taking part in a wine tasting kindly hosted by PHTC member James Simpson from Pol Roger and Henning’s Wine in Petworth. All four pairs were under 24 handicap and it really was a great atmosphere, followed by a lovely dinner hosted by Andrew and Sally Falk.

Saturday morning was the start of the last 32 matches with some close ones and some one sided ones with some strong pairs still making it through.  From 13.00 we had the most of the last 16 matches and one stand out result was Nick Warner and Bill Chambers beating Andrew Falk and Tim Parker 6/0 off rec 30, owe 30 and only losing 3 points in total (sorry Andrew and Tim).  Could they be the winning pair…

On Saturday evening the court was absolutely transformed for the tournament dinner.  Lesley Dolman did an amazing job with an endless supply of fairy lights lighting up the court and tables ready for 95 members and guests.  We had a delicious 4 course dinner followed by coffee and speeches from our Vice Chairman/ Tournament Organiser Robert Dolman and Chairman Philip Robinson.

On to the quarter-finals and all of the matches were very close, but the new favourites were pipped 8/7 by David Christie and David Brooksbank This was followed by two extremely close semi-finals with Simon Gray & Stuart Allison flying under the radar so far but made a late fight back to beat Jon Petersen & Luke Readman 8/7.  David Christie & David Brooksbank also came back to beat David Fortune & Andrew Reid-Thomas 8/7 in the other semi-final.

The final was played in a great spirit and it was nip and tuck all the way to 7 all,  40 all when Stuart Allison was presented with a ball on the backwall at the service end and lucky for him he remembered all of those lessons and placed the ball down to the base of the tambour to take the victory with partner Simon Gray. The final and in fact the whole tournament was played in fantastic spirit and myself and Louis had a great time marking every match. Congratulations to Simon and Stuart!

A huge thank you to Carolyn Armstrong -Smith for supplying a fabulous lunch every day for players and guests, to Lesley Dolman for Dinner on Wednesday evening and supplying and setting up the lights for the Saturday dinner, David and Caroline Fortune for a fabulous curry on Thursday night, Andrew and Sally Falk for dinner on Friday night, Carole Muir for the Saturday evening dinner arrangements and to Lyn Robinson for the table flowers for the dinner but a special thank you to Robert Dolman who has put in a huge amount of time and effort recruiting  players and replacing players and was at the club for every single ball that was struck during the tournament!

We all look forward to the next big event at the club!

 

A. LUCY HUTCHINSON

This is to announce that Lucy Hutchinson has decided to step down as Hon Membership Secretary at the end of the year after 10 years in that role, and she will be retiring from the Board at that date.

On behalf of all members I would like to extend my enormous thanks to her for her dedication and commitment to the task and from a personal point of view for all her invaluable support and advice as a member of the Board.

 

B. IAN McNALLY

I am pleased to announce that Ian McNally has been appointed to the Board and as from the

1^st January 2019 will take on the role of Hon Membership Secretary.

I would like to extend a warm welcome to him to the Board and wish him well in his new role.

Philip Robinson

Chairman

16th October 2018

Andy Dawson A Grade Final  – from 2017/18 season

In a repeat of last seasons final it was once again Luke Danby and Adam Dolman playing in the final of the A Grade Andy Dawson.  Luke played a very fast paced first set to close it 6/2 but Adam then started serving a lot more accurately and also upped his pace to completely turn things around in the second set to win it 6/1.  2/0 to Luke and then quite quickly Adam back to 2/2 and a very tight game with two chases better than two saw Luke sneak it and then he flew through the next 3 games to retain his title for another year 6/2 1/6 6/2.  The tennis really was of a great standard and enjoyed by all those in the dedans!