NEW CLUBHOUSE OPEN FOR BUSINESS
CROWTHORNE Tennis Club celebrated the opening ceremony of its new clubhouse building with the finals day for its members.
Mr Richard McCully, former Chairman of CTC and leader of the group who oversaw the construction of the building, and welcomed the Mayor of Wokingham Borough Cllr Caroline Smith.
As well as the Mayor and her consort, Mr Mike Smith, Crowthorne Tennis club were also joined by Ms Denise Walker, Secretary of Berkshire County Tennis.
After the speeches, CTC’s own Mike Smith, Secretary of the Club, presented an award to Richard McCully for Services to the Club for all his work on the construction of the new clubhouse.
The sun shone brightly for much of the day, and around
50 members enjoyed a lunch supplied by the club, while watching some excellent tennis.
The first match was the final of a Handicap Doubles competition, where Mark Lardner and David Stone were victorious over Lorraine Fowler and Steve Stow by five sets to two, in a best of nine tie-break sets.
All sets were closely contested, and the match was enjoyed by spectators. After lunch,15-yearold Jake Griffiths became the third teenager in a row to win the Men’s Singles tournament with a hard-fought win over Guy SmithBingham on Sunday.
It was an entertaining contest with fine hitting from both players, with a sharp contrast in styles adding to the intrigue.
The first set went with serve to 3-2 but then Guy took control and got the first of two consecutive breaks to win the first set 6-2.
However, Jake got straight back into the match breaking Guy in the first game of the second set and using his remarkable consistency and some excellent passing shots stretched his lead to 4-0 before Guy found some form again but Jake held on for a 6-2 win.
The third set repeated the second with Jake taking a 4-0 lead before Guy increased the aggression and with some powerful hitting and smart use of serve and volley climbed back to 4-5, leaving Jake to serve for the title.
Jake fought fire with fire and stepped up the hitting, allied to some excellent serving and took the match 6-4.
Finally, the Mixed Doubles final was held between Matt Paxton and Tina Stern vs James Thackray and Maggie Ingham.
After James and Maggie won a close first set by four games to six, Matt and Tina levelled the match by taking the second 6-2, it was neck and neck to 3-3 in the third.
The seventh game went to Matt and Tina after seven deuces after which Tina held serve and James was broken to make it game, set and match by 6-3 in the final set to Matt and Tina.