Leek Tennis Club eye up push for the league title
LEEK Tennis Club’s Men’s A and C teams have finished the season strongly, winning both Divisions Two and Three titles. At the first attempt, both teams have comfortably won promotion after relegations in 2018.
In the County League, the Men’s B team travelled to Florence on Sunday to play a probable title decider with both teams in with the chance of winning Division Two. Leek started strongly in the first two matches. Drew Bennett and Alex Cimino won the opening first set of their match only for Florence to then win the second set 6-4.
However Bennett and Cimino regrouped to win the third set Championship Tie Break. Dave Bennett and Josh Gilman went a service break up in the first set only for Florence to fight back with a double break to win the match 7-5, 6-3.
This set up exciting third and fourth matches that Leek needed to win to keep their title ambitions on track. Bennett and Gilman started their second match slowly losing the first set 6-1 and it was not looking good, with Bennett and Cimino also down in the first set of their match.
However, Bennett and Cimino fought back to win their first set leaving the match very evenly balanced. Bennett and Gilman gathered their game together to win the second set and then went on to win a marathon third set Championship Tie Break 1311.
Bennett and Cimino then won their match to give Leek a 3-1 win. Leek B team can now win the league if they manage to pick up five points from their next two matches this week. They played away at Eccleshall last night and then at home on Friday, again against Eccleshall.
The Ladies County team played their last match away to Walton B Ladies. Caroline Green and Janet Hardern, Leek’s first pair played first class tennis to win both sets against Walton’s second pair, 6-1, 6-1. Their second game, against Walton’s first duo, Caroline and Janet won both sets 6-3 and 6-2.
Alison Randle and Anne Gould, Leek’s second pair, played a good game against Walton’s first pair, but were unlucky to have lost the first set 2-6. They went on to brilliantly win the second set 6-0. A tie break was played and Alison and Anne came very close to winning, but just fell short losing 10-12. Their second game was played with a lot of deuce games but again they were unlucky to lose both sets. The Ladies came away with a creditable 2-2 draw.
Coaching continues at the club on Monday evenings for Juniors and Seniors. Coaching is open to members and non members.
Check the club website for furhter details or turn up at the club to speak to one of the coaching team on a Monday night.