Dallington A notched an 8-0 victory over Abington A on Friday night to sound notice they can lay down a challenge to defending champions County A this summer.
Only an end-of-season 7-1 trouncing at Northampton A stopped Dallington’s charge last summer, when four of the ceded sets went to tie-breaks.
And their 2013 challenge looks like being given a breath of fresh air under new skipper Stephen Guy, teamed up with Lloyd Read, while the pairing of former Rushmere man Dan Pawlusek and Oli Reis carried out the expected demolition of Abington’s Amrik Takhar/Pete Skerrett and Dominic Sefton/Karl Adams, although Takhar/Skerrett went to 3-6, 6-7 against Pawlusek/Reis.
County A again confirmed their ‘favourites’ status with an 8-0 win against their own B team but the bigger shock saw County C hold much touted challengers Corby TC A 4-4 to raise serious question marks about their credentials.
County fielded their normal team of Barry Wilson/Dave Garrett and Jonny Searle/Ben Foster while the B team consisted of Dave Brown/Ian Masters and Arthur Eyles/James Cole while the C team pairs of Dean Gayton/Marcus Dimmock and James Whybrow/Tony Pratt both defeated Corby’s Neil Shorrock/Tim Davies, even if star juniors Jack Haworth and Joe Tyler claimed all four.
County A skipper Barry Wilson said: “It is still early days but I was surprised to notice we didn’t have a single 8-0 win during the winter league so it is good to get a couple of those on the board.”
Northampton LTC were 8-0 winners at Wollaston with a line-up of Simon Gallo/James Williams and Carl Barrick/Josh Winters accounting for Terry O’Reilly/James Nicholas and Mark Stockley/Kerry Anderson.
Tennis courses at Abington
Abington LTC is once again offering an opportunity for ‘rusty’ tennis players to renew their love of the sport with a six-week course on the club’s grass courts in Park Avenue South during June and early July.
The ‘Come Back To Tennis’ sessions are aimed at players with some previous experience of a racket sport...
The sessions will be run by Dominic Sefton and Amie Norman of Abington LTC and begin on Saturday June 1 at 11am-12.30pm and cost £5 a week, or £25 all in.
Anyone interested can visit the Abington web site at www.abingtonltc.co.uk or ring Steve on 07738 716157.
Busy weekend for county junior squads
Four of Northants’ junior squads will be in competitive action this weekend.
While the county 14U boys and girls’ squads will be taking part in their national championships at Southampton and Great Malvern respectively, the 10U, 11U and 12U sides will be contesting the Lionel Cox championships at Queenswood School in Hertfordshire.
The 14U boys, coached by Steve Biss, look to have a strong hand, made up of Joe Tyler, Cameron Yuill, Sam Smith, Henry Masters and James Healey.
The girls’ team is being run by James Haley and includes Jessica Buchanan, Alex Lewis and Imogen Allen as well as sisters Katie and Laura Heathfield.
The boys will play four of the following six counties in Group F: Kent, Berkshire, Hampshire & IOW, Bucks and Oxon while the girls will face Middlesex, Oxon, Gloucestershire, Shropshire and Hereford & Worcestershire in Group H.