Full results of the annual tournament can be seen at
https://lta.tournamentsoftware.com/sport/draws.aspx?id=B110CAF5-A818-4955-9D12-1C56B133198E
Full results of the Junior U14 tournament can be seen at
http://lta.tournamentsoftware.com/sport/event.aspx?id=DA5D25D1-E8AC-420F-BE2C-3C6665240547&event=1
Photos of the event are in the Gallery.
Trophies will be presented at the Annual Dinner to be held on Friday 28 September at the Masonic Hall, Harrogate.
Tournament 2018 Report
The Annual Harrogate & District Tennis League’s tournament finals day was held on Saturday 16 June 2018 at Harrogate Racquets Club, who sponsored the event providing courts and tennis balls all week for the event, and a welcome finals day BBQ, manned by club volunteers. Tournament Organiser Paul Evison, and Referee Mark Hinchliffe had organised 87 adult and 19 junior players over a week long knockout schedule of 9 events, with all the finals ready to be played. Anyone who plays at the 18 member clubs in the HDTL can enter the free tournament, and players choose their partners, so cross-club pairings are common, as are parent and child pairs, which is fun for everyone.
The first finals events on court were the new U14 boys and U14 girls. Eva Kettlewell (Harlow) a Year 7 pupil at Harrogate Grammar school took on Louisa Ibberson (Harrogate Racquets) who is in Year 8 at HGS. The first set was won by Eva in a tie-break, and the second 6-2. On the other court George Brown (David Lloyd) who is in Year 9 at HGS took on Leo Poulton (Harlow) who is in Year 9 at Rossett and won 6-4 6-2.
The next event was the Open Mixed Doubles where the David Lloyd pairing of Mark Hinchliffe and Ellie Makin had a hard hitting win 6-4 6-3 against the West Tanfield pairing of Judith Abel and Martin Laidler. Then the men’s singles events started, and it was a nervous time for all as it was their first men’s singles final for all competitors. The Open Men’s singles event saw Year 11 Harrogate High School student Ryan Carrick (West Tanfield) taking on Richard Bancroft (David Lloyd), and the first set was a long one with Ryan winning the tie-break 7-6 and going on to win the title 6-0. In the Restricted Men’s singles event Tim Simpson (West Tanfield) won 6-0 6-3 over Matt Waters (David Lloyd).
The Restricted Men’s Doubles event was a long drawn out match with the Starbeck pair of James Mathewman & Chris White eventually winning 7-5 4-6 6-3 against the resilient West Tanfield pair of Sam Cullen and Robert Hutchinson. The Restricted Mixed doubles match saw Chris Partridge & Judith Thompson (Ripon) playing Sarah Jackson & Rajiv Johar (Harrogate Racquets) with both Chris and Rajiv having played the most sets of any players in the tournament. The Ripon pair won 6-4 6-4.
In the Open Ladies Doubles the novice finalists of Carol Collinson & Caroline Hardy (Thirsk) won 6-2 7-6 against Audrey Henderson and Gillian Smail (Harrogate Racquets). The last event of the day was the Open Mens Doubles which had a couple of rain delays when the skies opened at 4pm, but Ryan Carrick (West Tanfield) & Ryan Lonsdale (Harrogate Racquets) won 6-4 2-6 6-3 against Bill Brown (Harrogate Racquets) and Mark Hinchliffe (David Lloyd) to take the title.
There were insufficient entries to run the Open Ladies Singles, Restricted Ladies Singles and Restricted Ladies Doubles events.
Photos of all the events can be seen in the Gallery on the website. The tournament will be back next year, and everyone at the HDTL member clubs is encouraged to enter, and play in a traditional set based tennis tournament.
Trophies will be presented at the Annual Dinner to be held on Friday 28 September at the Masonic Hall, Harrogate.