Tennis
Spa Ladies make a winning start

DROITWICH Tennis Club’s Ladies made a flying start to the Summer League season by recording successive victories.

They began with an excellent 6-0 victory against Manor Park as Lauren Whiteman and Alex Poyser, Kate Hughes and Sophie Sallows and third pair Margaret Hughes and Marelize Yorke all won both of their matches.

A more difficult challenge followed against Cutnall Green but Spa still came out on top 4-2.

Whiteman and Sallows beat the first pair comfortable but then had to battle harder to win two tiebreaks against the second pair whose style of play was more unorthodox.

Kate Hughes and Clare Cussen comfortably beat the third pair but then had a tough three set match against the first pair, securing the win 6-3 in the third set.

Their first defeat of the season followed against an exceptional Stourbridge A side whilst the fourth match of a busy couple of weeks currently stands at 3-2 to Bromsgrove with one rubber left to finish.

Whiteman and Sallows beat Bromsgrove’s second pair 6-7, 6-3, 6-3, having lost 6-7, 1-6 to the first pair.

Margaret Hughes and Yorke were at the losing end of two three set matches whilst Kate Hughes and Lisa Pettener-Jones beat Bromsgrove’s third pair 6-4, 7-5 and are currently at 5-5 in the first set with the first pair.

The Men had two visits inside seven days to Manor Park in Malvern to play the two teams they have in Division One but both ended in defeat. Thanks go to Mark Jones, Adam Hair, Scott Howell and Joe Maidment who played on both occasions.

The B team were involved in an epic struggle against Bewdley on Sunday in a match that took over five hours to complete.

It ended 3-3 in rubbers, 8-8 in sets and 80-79 in Bewdley’s favour in games.

Special mention goes to Nick King who played up with Neil Bates and secured the draw with a 7-5, 6-7, 7-5 win against Bewdley’s first pair.

The rest of the team, Kevin Hodges, Robin Jones, John Wright and Mark Pearsall, all chipped in with wins, but the one game difference gave Bewdley the extra point.

There was also a close result for the C team who pinched the extra point in a winning draw at home to Halesowen, winning 65-63 in games after good displays from Tom Fellows, Adam Hair, Eric Cartleet, Ollie Wall and Nigel Hughes.

Keeping up the theme of close games, the E team picked up a promising result at Hallow.

All three pairs won and lost a rubber each, doing themselves proud in the process.

Young Ben Steele rose to the challenge of playing his first ever men’s match well, sealing a debut success alongside Mark Wong.

Finally, the Mixed E team have already completed all of their summer fixtures with their last match having taken place at Malvern MCS. Tom Armstrong and Chris Sellers lost 6-4, 6-2 then 6-3, 6-1 whilst Betty Shuck and Roger Whiteman lost 6-3, 6-1 then 6-4, 6-3.

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