An LTA Grade 4 Tournament
Tournament code OXF101
The Abingdon Lawn Tennis Club 2010 Open Tournament took place from Monday 9th to Saturday 14th August. The Open is a Grade 4 LTA tournament for juniors, with competitions for age groups from Under 10 to Under 18. This year we held the finals on Friday and scheduled the Family Doubles competition and the (senior) Preston Bowl mixed doubles competition on Saturday. The final Order of Play, the Draws and results and a Photo gallery of the finalists have now been posted on this web site. They may be accessed using the buttons at the left.
This year the weather followed the pattern we have become used to for
three of the last four years. After several weeks without any rain, the weather changed for the Open. Rain led to us losing half a days play
on Tuesday, having the finals disrupted on Friday and dodging showers
for most of Saturday. So much for the dry summer! The U14 and U18 boys
showed great patience through the Tuesday rain delay. It was a little
easier for them this year, as the newly extended clubhouse made
sheltering from the rain much easier than in previous years.
Julia Freeman was replaced by Liz Bamber as Tournament Referee for
this year's Open, but Julia appeared on Finals day as a Chair Umpire
(congratulations to Julia for becoming a grandmother at the start of
Open week). Liz coped with the players and the weather admirably, and
managed to finish all the scheduled finals by the end of play on
Friday. The number of entries (135) was slightly down on last year,
largely due the the lack of entries from girls. This year we only had
sufficient entries to run a grade 4 competition for the U14 girls, and
we cancelled all the rest of the girls events. The U10 girls were
invited to play with the U10 boys, and Amelia Efthimiou took this up
and managed to win her first match to love, but was denied a place in
the final by the number 2 boys seed. She did so well that we decided
to present her with the trophy we had ready for the U10 girls singles.
We hope that many more girls will enter next year.
As usual, we saw the return of players from previous years as well as
many new faces. Peter Honey, the 2009 U14bs winner, returned to take
the U16bs title this year. His opponent in the final, Bertie Bull, had
an excellent tournament to get to the final, but had to pull out of
the final with an injury. Orlando Lloyd, at his fifth Abingdon Open,
went one better than last year to take the U18bs title. Amongst the
new faces were the three Frank brother. They all had a good
tournament, but the most impact was made by the middle brother,
Penn. Penn won the U12bs, reached the U14bs final and
succeeded in having more lost property items than anyone else!
We had an enjoyable tourmanent again this year. Thanks go again to Sally Cullen and her helpers for organising the refreshments. We look forward to seeing many of the regular competitors again at next year's tournament.