Harlow Tennis Club men's team head out on tour

Sat,April 1st Overcast skies started proceedings with captain Colin Lefley partnering Cassius Petrovan as pair one with our top seeds going down 4 - 8 against Hieu Truong-Van and Steve Holmes. A nasty slip by Cassius during the match added concern to the team but like a true pro Cassius played through the pain!

Harlow 2nd pair Andrew Carrick and John Berger narrowly lost 7 - 8 against Jamie Blake and Shaun Longthorne in the game of the day with Sedgefield winning in the tie break.

On the third court that is hidden behind the historic clubhouse our partnering of tour coach Smith and Paul Kettlewell (never played together before but accepted the challenge!) went down 2 to 8 against Tony Williamson and Sedgefield player of the day Alan Stockdale, Alan was a tricky lefty with a nice angled serve.

Round two saw Harlow make a fight back with Colin and Cassius beating Jamie and Shaun 8 - 4 and John and Andrew winning 8 - 6 Paul and our tour coach kept up their consistency with another 2 games losing 8 to 2 against Hieu and Steve.

Third round needed Harlow to take three victories to take back the trophy so we mentioned to Smith and Kettlewell that the curry was free if they could pull off a victory , unfortunately it wasn't to be with Smith and Kettlewell losing 1 - 6 in a rain affected third round.

Overall Chilton and Sedgefield won 5 sets to 4 and 57 games to 42.

A presentation was made in a local pub with Cassius Petrovan receiving the Harlow medal for player of the day.

Day two at Durham Archery lawn tennis club

Beautiful skies greeted us on Sunday after a lovely stay at the Bannatyne hotel just outside Durham.

From playing on macadam courts on Saturday we were greeted to some top class astro turf plus three grass courts!

Round one didn't start off very well with all pairings losing both sets, only Skipper Cassius and Colin putting up any fight against three strong Durham pairings.

Alan Hopper and Mathew Bradley both play in the top Archery side and their standard showed through as they comfortably beat all Harlow pairs.

Round two saw Cassius and Colin share the sets against Durham captain Mike Eggleston and top chef Steve Elliott 2-6/ 7-6 in a close contest. Andrew and John also pulled off a share of the sets against Barry Pears and Peter Tiffin.

Paul Kettlewell and coach Smith didn't know what had hit them when they faced top pair of dairy farmer Alan and Mathew taking only one game!

Third Round

Colin & Cassius halved the match against Barry and Peter as Harlow went down 15 sets to 3 sets.

We would like to thank Durham Archery tennis club for a splendid lunch that was top notch and we hope to return the favour in the future!

Harlow have certainly made some new friends in the tennis world and now look forward to the first fixtures of the season in the York mens league on April 23.