Slazenger Junior North East Cheshire Lawn Tennis League

With three of the five titles taken by the local members, the first of this season's new tournaments - the Alderley Edge 'starter' tournament - was an instant success!

56 players (and the entire league committee!) pitched up for a hectic afternoon of tennis in the usual wonderful surroundings.

The Under 12 sections were dominated by Alderley Edge players - in the Girls event, Vicky Mowat & Kate Watson were the worthy winners with Jenny Eden & Katie Hazeldine in the runners-up spot. Lawrence Blakey and Jamie Novotny headed the Boys group, with Bertie Nicholson & Huw Smith in second place. Well done to all four!

The Under 15 Boys event saw Prestbury's Tom Dale & Connor Moran triumph over game runners-up James Clayman & Alex Lee (Bramhall Queensgate).

The Under 15 Girls was dominated by Alderley Edge again with Maddie Coutts & Holly Smith taking top prize from Maria Jackson & Rosie Osborne.

The U18 Boys event saw a repeat of the Ryecroft final with John Abbott & Adam Tomlinson (Greave/Davenport) reaching the final to face the Greave pairing of Sam Waterhouse & Andrew Widdowson. A tense final saw John & Adam take the title on a deciding tie-break - more to come from these pairs this season!

Thanks are due to all at Alderley Edge CC for their hospitality and thanks to all the players, several of whom were, in the spirit of a 'starter' tournament, making their first appearance in a competitive tournament!

Without you players, the tournaments would be rather quiet so thanks to you all!

Click on these links for photos from the event:

ae_u12_finalists         ae_u12_boys_winners       ae_u12_boys_runners_up

ae_u15_girls_winners                  ae_u15_girls_runners_up 

ae_u15_boys_winners                  ae_u15_boys_runners_up

ae_u18_boys_winners                  ae_u18_boys_runners_up

The warm weather brought 46 players out to Ryecroft Park for the first one day tournament of the new season and the start of the 'Magnificent 7' Grand Prix Series!

The U12 Girls competition saw Ava Johnson and Emily Spencer from Alderley Edge top the group from runners-up Eilidh Gawley and Naomi McIntosh (The Northern) with the Ryecroft pairing of Fariba Ghazizadeh and Clare Wright in 3rd place.

Ava and Emily then stepped up an age group and took top spot in the U15s with Helen Moyes and Emma Scott (Prestbury) runners up.

The Boys U15 saw 11 team entries - after the round robin matches were completed, 6 pairs moved on to the knockout stage. After two quarter final matches, the semi final line-up was complete. Kieran Cronin and Alex Morris (David Lloyd) edged past Faris McGrath and Tim Whitehead (Ryecroft) to reach the final where they came up against Lucas Taylor and David Ashcroft (Lindow) who overcame Nick Haworth and Oscar Bamford from Bowdon in the other semi. In the final, Kieran and Alex established an early lead and never looked back, taking first place with a 6/1 win.

8 pairs entered a strong U18 Boys event - two group stages resulted in a tightly fought semi final between Sam Waterhouse and Andy Widdowson (Greave) who overcame the home club pairing of Jordan Roberts and Mike Belshaw to reach a final which kept the remaining crowd on the edge of their seats!

Sam and Andy took an early lead against their opponents Adam Tomlinson and John Abbott (Davenport/Greave) but were pegged back and, with a police helicopter circling above, Adam and John took the top honours in a tight tie break! We hope the pilot enjoyed the final as much as the crowd!

Well done to all the winners and to all who took part - we hope you enjoyed the day and we look forward to seeing you at our future events!

A particular thanks to the usual fantastic welcome from Julie, Debbie and the Ryecroft team who have set the 'catering' bar very high at the opening event of the season!

 See you all soon!

Photos...click on the links below -

ryecroft08_u12g_winners        

 ryecroft08_u15g_winners       ryecroft08_u15g_runners_up 

ryecroft08_u18b_winners       ryecroft08_u18b_runners_up       

ryecroft08__u15b_winners      ryecroft08_u15b_runners_up

The 'Autumn Afternoon' event, the last of 2007, saw a huge entry of 62 players descend on Bramhall Lane LTC. Thankfully, despite threatening, the weather was kind and the event concluded before the floodlights were required!

A combined U18 and U15 Boys event proved very competitive and after the group stages an all-Poynton final ended in victory to Paul Costello and Tom Ellis with Ethan Allen and David Gray in runners up.

The U15/U12 Girls event was won by Jayne and Claire Wallace (Bramhall Lane), defeating Lauren Hepburn and Chloe Chan (Hale Barns) in the final, whilst in the final of the Boys U12 section, probably the best match of the day saw Prashant Duggal and James Donnelly survive a strong fightback from Adam Costello and Alex Setalvad to take the top prize.

 Well done to all players (and the referees!) and thanks to all at Bramhall Lane LTC for hosting such a successful event!

League vice-president Sally Archer also presented the prizes to the winners of the Grand Prix which ran during the summer and accumulated the results in six of the League's one day tournaments.

Congratulations to Kieran Cronin (1st), Charlotte Sykes (2nd), Sally Lynn (3rd) and Connor Moran and Will Archer (joint 4th).

A grand total of 156 players registered a score in the Grand Prix - well done to all our competitors!

The Committee would like to thank all clubs, junior organisers, parents, and above all, the junior players who have made 2007 such a successful season!

Thanks to you all - looking forward to 2008! 

For pictures, click on the links!

bl_u18_boys_winners      bl_u18_boys_r_up

bl_u15_girls_winners      bl_u15_girls_r_up

bl_u12_boys_winners      bl_u12_boys_r_up

2007_gp_winners

League Tables for the 2007 season have now all been finalised and are available on this site by clicking on 'Results' and then selecting the required division.

Statistics for the season reveal a disappointing increase in the overall percentage of matches not played from 18.75% of the total in 2006 to 22.6% in 2007. In simple terms, 120 out of the scheduled 531 matches were either conceded or claimed as walkovers.

Best performers in the Boys divisions were clubs in U13 Div 1 with 20 out of 21 matches played. In the Mixed, U15 Div 1 saw 27 out of 28 matches played - well done to teams in these divisions!

At the other end of the scale, Boys U15 Div 1 concluded with only 16 matches out of 28 being played and an even worse performance came in Divisions 3 and 4 of the U18 Mixed section, both of which recorded only 10 played out of 21 scheduled - less than half.

The Committee is particularly keen to significantly reduce the number of conceded/claimed matches and clubs are asked to consider team entry levels carefully for the forthcoming season in order to ensure that the maximum number of matches are completed.

The destiny of the 2007 Youatt Cup was decided today as the Final and 3rd/4th Play-Off was concluded at Prestbury Village LTC.

In the Final, The Northern boys gave the Bramhall Lane boys a scare, taking the first set 6/3 but Bramhall Lane fought back and levelled with a 6/2 second set win. Meanwhile, the Bramhall Lane girls secured the trophy for the third year in a row with a straight sets win 6/3 6/1.

The 3rd/4th Place Play-Off saw Lindow boys set the pace with a 6/1 6/4 win over Hale Barns. In the girls event it was a different story with the Hale Barns pair levelling the match with a 6/2 6/2 victory. A deciding mixed doubles set was required to settle matters and the 3rd Place went to Hale Barns with a 6/3 set win!

Peter Brown, representing event sponsors North East Cheshire League, presented the trophy, medals and cheques to the four finalists. Junior League Chairman, Peter Nugent, thanked Ruth Moyes and the Prestbury club for hosting the event and the North East Cheshire League for their second year of kind sponsorship.

Well done to all the players who were a credit to their repective clubs!

For photos of the four finalists, click on the links below -

b_lane_2007_winners              northern_2007_2nd_place

hale_barns_2007_3rd_place           lindow_2007_4th_place