Douai Park Tennis Club Blog

Douai Park Tennis Club will be hosting a Junior Tennis Tournament in association with Bucklebury Tennis Club. Details as follows:

Date: Sunday 26th September

Time: 3pm – 6.30pm (Please arrive at 2.45pm)

Age: Secondary school age. (If there are younger siblings who would like to take part, let Emma know (contact details below) and she will try and arrange something for them).

Format: Round Robin leagues with play-offs to find an overall champion. Girls and boys will play together. Current thinking is to make each match ‘first to 15′. (If you win 15 – 0, you get 30 points. If you win 15 – 14, you get 16 points and your opponent gets 14 etc.) But this may change.

Cost. £2 per head. Balls will be provided.

Parents: …are needed. Please come and support plus helpers would be much appreciated on court to help with the scoring.

How to enter. Please contact Emma Spriggs by email ejn@asalimited.com or telephone on 0118 9714502 or 07730 309356. Pay on the day.

Closing date: Wednesday 22nd September.

Good Luck to Ben Ely who is taking over as Chairman and will be running the club from now on – Ben you will be great at it – I have really loved the past three years in the job and look forward now to taking a back seat and concentrating on fundraising.
On Wimbledon – this is definitely the year – I think Murray could go all the way – he’s making it look so easy!

I haven’t been able to watch any play at Wimbledon today, but I glanced at the Wimbledon Slam Tracker a moment ago and not only was Roger Federer being beaten in four sets by Tomas Berdych, but Rafael Nadal was 0-5 down in his first set against Robin Soderling.  What with Venus Williams going out yesterday this year’s Wimbledon has the distinct feel of change in the air.

Talking of new talent, all may not be so gloomy for British tennis. Not only is one of Andy Murray’s main obstacles now out of the way, but it seems our juniors aren’t doing too badly either. For a quick summary on the state of our junior tennis check out this report by the BBC here. May yet be grounds for optimism.

Yes, it’s here at last, our annual super-fix of all things tennis, the Championships at Wimbledon.  With only a couple of British men (neither of them English) in the draw we might be limited in whom we can support, but who knows this might be Andy Murray’s year. We’ll be following the action here, reporting and linking to anything of interest to our members.  As a starter, why not check out the draw for the first day here on the always excellent official Wimbledon website.

A selection of 2010 season Babolat tennis rackets (as used by Rafael Nadal and Andy Roddick) will be available for trial at the Open Day this afternoon. These rackets have been very kindly provided by Wildsports based in Newbury and Winchester and club members have been offered a 15% discount off RRP. If you would like to try a racket please see Paul Griggs. If you would like to purchase a new racket at the discount price, please provide your selection and contact details and these will be passed to Wildsports who will contact you directly.

Sunday JUNE 20, 4 – 6 pm- on the courts
OPEN DAY TENNIS FUN AND COACHING, BBQ and more
Socialise or play FREE entry (food/drinks small donation)

No one can fail to be excited by the return of Rafael Nadal to win the French Open for an incredible fifth time. Add to this his previous wins in the Australian Open and at Wimbledon, a total of seven open titles, and the prospects for this year’s All England Club Tournament look very exciting.

Much as one cheers for the Brits, one can’t fail to be excited by Nadal’s raw energy and talent. Hopefully those DPTC members with tickets for Wimbledon will soon be seeing that at first hand.

Full report on the final here.

Andy Murray held out in the first round of the French Open, battling back from two sets down to beat Richard Gasquet.  Despite his opponent’s home advantage, Murray kept going until he turned the game. As he said afterwards:

“I just managed to come back in the end by fighting hard and believing. You need to try and stay focused on your own game and against someone like him it’s tough. I looked up at one point and he’d hit 59 winners and 30 unforced errors. It’s difficult but you just need to chase everything down and believe in yourself.”

Score: 4-6 6-7 (5-7) 6-4 6-2 6-1

Full report here