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Last weekend Seacourt Tennis Club, Hayling Island hosted yet another Silver Racquet Handicap Singles for the top Professional and Amateur players.  The cut off for the main draw is 9.4 and both Tom and Louis played some very solid tennis to progress through the first two rounds and into the Semi-Finals.  Louis (winner 2011) had an epic match against two time winner Adam Player with Adam edging it in three sets.  Tom beat young Radley Assistant Professional Zak Eadle 6/3 6/5 to go through to the final.  Tom was giving away points for the third match in a row and this time it wasn’t to be.  Adam played an incredible game of tennis to close it out 6/1 6/3 although it must be said that he had more than his share of lucky net cords!

Full results of the tournament are below:

Round 1

N Mackenzie (rec 1/2 30) bt C Chapman (owe 30) 6/2 5/6 6/2

T Durack (rec 1/2 15) bt D Long 6/0 6/2

Z Eadle bt G Eden 6/1 6/3

L Gordon (rec 15) bt B Matthews (owe 1/2 30) 6/2 1/6 6/1

T Seymour-Mead bt C Greenhalgh (owe 1/2 15) 6/0 6/4

C Fahey bt A Fowler 6/4 6/5

L Danby rec 15)  bt R Fahey MBE (owe 1/2 30) 6/4 6/3

A Player bt A Lyons (owe 1/2 15) 6/1 5/6 6/3

Quarter-Finals

L Gordon (owe 15) bt N Mackenzie 6/5 1/6 6/1

A Player (rec 15) bt L Danby 6/0 6/1

Z Eadle bt C Fahey (owe 1/2 15) 5/6 6/4 6/4

T Durack (owe 15) bt T Semour-Mead 5/6 6/3 6/3

Semi-Finals

A Player bt L Gordon (owe 15) 6/5 3/6 6/4

T Durack (owe 15)  bt Z Eadle 6/3 6/5

Final

A Player beat T Durack (owe 15) 6/1 6/3

What a weekend of tennis!

Wow! What a weekend of tennis we had this last weekend.  We had random pairings competing in the Secretary’s which is now in its 41^st year!  Over the Friday and Saturday there were 30 sets of very close tennis played. On the Sunday morning we had four pairs playing off with the chance for three of them to progress into the Quarter-Final along with the group winners.  As it turned out both of our finalists were in this group  finishing second and third.  In the top half of the draw,  David Fortune and Ian Lambert came through a 5 all forty all against Julian Francis & Philip Smith winning the last point by about an inch! David & Ian then won another 5 all forty all against Stuart Allison & Jon Petersen in the Semi-Final and I am sure that Jon would like that forehand volley again! (sorry Jon).  In the bottom half Hugh Horne & Simon Brett seemed to get better and better, beating Ian McNally & Martin Fox 6/4 in a closely contested Quarter-Final and then comfortably beat the normally very steady paring of Robert Dolman & Andrew Falk 6/1 in the Semi-Final.

So then to the final –  This was a set to 8 games and the handicap was Rec 15, Owe 30 in Simon & Hugh’s favour. The first 8 games were shared and then from 4/4 Simon & Hugh played some very good tennis to edge ahead to 7/4 and the full dedans thought that might be it but David & Ian had other ideas and after saving numerous match points levelled the match at 7 all.  Simon & Hugh then went 40/0 up but again David and Ian fought back to 40 all, so it was to be a double match point and Simon put a tricky high ball heading towards the dedans which was just too good and with that they took the win 8/7.  I think the crowd were more exhausted then the players in one of the closest finals we have ever had.

A big thank you to Lucy Hutchinson for providing lunch on Friday, to Andrew and Sally Falk for providing lunch on Saturday and Sunday and a special thank you to Fiona Lunch (wife of the first PHTC Secretary Peter Fleck) who once again watched the tennis all day on Sunday and presented our finalists with their trophies.  We look forward to next year .

Congratulations to PHTC’s Charlie Braham on winning the British Under 21 singles on Sunday.  He beat Henry Batstone in the final 6/5 6/0

Congratulations to Ex World Champion Robert Fahey who has just been awarded an MBE in the New Year’s Honours list for his services to Real Tennis.

For 22 years Rob Fahey dominated the world stage, in all tennis playing countries across the globe. He has proved to be a model World Champion and advocate for the sport. He is without question the most successful player in the history of Tennis, having defended his World Title more times than anybody else (11 times), including Pierre Etchebaster (6 times) and Fred Covey (5 times and grandfather of Neil who is a member).  Rob also held the Doubles World Championship Crown partnering Steve Virgona from 2003 – 2015 successfully defending it 6 times.

Off the court Rob has also been a great ambassador for our sport and has made many appearances down here at PHTC whether it be for a charity doubles match with members or National League matches (as recently as last month) and we thank him for that.