Friday, May 30, 2003

C & G Gloucestershire Junior Closed

Just a reminder that entry forms for the C & G Gloucestershire Junior Closed are available from the tournament website, www.chelt-jun-tourn.org.uk/.
The tournament will be held at the East Gloucestershire Club, Old Bath Road, Cheltenham (01242 230562), and other venues, from Monday 25th August to Friday 29th August 2003. You can find out all the tournament details from the website above, including rules, directions to the club and each days order of play.

Posted at 9:29 PM [link]

North Cotswold Tennis Clubs appoint a Development and Coaching Officer

The tennis clubs of Chipping Campden, Bourton Vale, Moreton in Marsh and Northleach have formed a partnership and appointed coach, Jamie Davis to co-ordinate and develop tennis activities for juniors and adults within the 4 clubs.
Jamie is an ex-Gloucestershire Junior tennis player, who represented the County many times at junior level. Jamie now plays in the senior league when he can find time from his busy coaching schedule.
Jamie was a pupil of Tewkesbury school before moving to Wales with his family for most of his teenage years. Jamie continued to develop his tennis in Wales and became Dyfed Open Junior Champion.
Gloucestershire LTA are delighted to welcome him back to the county as an LTA licensed coach.

Quote from Chris Rivers, County Development Officer:

"We are delighted that a talented young coach such as Jamie has returned to Gloucestershire to serve tennis in the community. This is also a credit to the 4 clubs involved."

Posted at 9:17 PM [link]

Monday, May 19, 2003

LTA Newsletter

‘Make it happen’ is the LTA's own newsletter. This is a pdf document (about 240k) that you can download and read.

Posted at 10:22 PM [link]

Glevum Tennis Club

At last Glevum Tennis Club has been able to open with the help of some of Gloucester RFC in the form of Josh Frape and Thinus Delport.

The Club was one of the pilot schemes introduced by the LTA to open tennis to the Community. The idea behind the scheme was that a School and a Tennis Club should join together to form a Club open to the community by combining their resources. With the 100% commitment from Denmark Road High School for Girls over a number of years the dream has at last come to fruition.
When the scheme first started the school's tennis courts had just been condemned as unsafe, but with the aid of a grant from the LTA and support from the school and its governors a new facility has been completed. A new pavilion, which was opened recently, along with the refurbished courts, has been a stimulus for the game.
An annual membership of £20.00 for juniors will encourage a new generation of young tennis players keen to emulate Wimbledon stars such as Tim Henman and the Williams sisters.

Further details of the Glevum Club can be had by contacting The High School for Girls, Denmark Road or Glevum Tennis Club Chairman by EMAIL: steve (at) semartin (dot) freeserve (dot) co (dot) uk

Posted at 9:50 PM [link]

Tennis in the forest

Thanks to the tennis development officer for the Forest of Dean Bas Godden's continued hard work along with support from Chris Rivers a new tennis club at Dene Magna has been formed at Dene Magna College.

Bas's enthusiasm and commitment has been instrumental in reviving tennis within the Forest, his driving force has raised the profile of tennis in the area developing a need for a new Club which will be open to the whole community. Tennis will also be part of Dene Magna's evening school curriculum!
This is an example where the LTA's initiative for "More Players, Better Players" has started to show results. With this drive tennis has become one of the key sports in the Active Sports Programme of the area.
Bas and Chris are now going to target the southern part of theForest by using the Cliff Richard's Tennis Trail to introduce the sport to the junior schools. As in the past Lydney Tennis Club are again promoting their junior section so there will be no excuse for the youngsters not to try the game.
Not to be out done by all of this Five Acres Leisure Centre is having three new floodlit courts built along with a Kid's Zone. Other initiatives in the area include the Robinsons Challenge events and for the Under 14s the Road to Wimbledon.

For further details of any of the above contact Gloucestershire LTA at GLTA County Office, Oxstalls ITI, Tewkesbury Road, Gloucester - 01452 396644 or EMAIL: glos (at) lta (dot) org (dot) uk

Posted at 9:48 PM [link]

Friday, May 16, 2003

Rusedski and Henman are having trouble and Sampras pulls out of Wimbledon

Greg Rusedski's comeback has been cut short by a neck injury, putting his participation at Wimbledon in doubt. [Guardian Unlimited: Tennis].......Tim Henman missed a great opportunity to silence the doom-mongers yesterday. He stumbled to an infuriating defeat to Olivier Rochus, the world No65. [Guardian Unlimited: Tennis].......Pete Sampras will not play at the French Open or Wimbledon this year. [BBC Sports - Tennis]

Posted at 3:41 PM [link]

Tuesday, May 13, 2003

Tim Henman secures a win and Greg Rusedski plays again

Tim Henman secured only his third win all year beating Jan-Michael Gambill 7-5, 6-4 in the Masters Series. Greg Rusedski plays his first match in more than 8 months in the first round of the Zagreb Open Challenger event. [Guardian Unlimited: Tennis]

Posted at 10:52 PM [link]

Further details and a photo of our Boy’s Under 13 team

On May 3-5th 44 county teams competed in groups of 4 at 11 UK venues for the annual 13U County Cup.
Glos LTA boys team won Div 6 and are promoted to Div 5 for 2004.
The boys competed against the teams of Northumberland, Bedfordshire and Cornwall at the Coombe Dingle sports centre, Bristol.
This was a superb achievement by a largely under age team (4 of 5 players still eligible next year).

Results:
Sat 3rd vs Northumberland Won 5-1
Sun 4th vs Bedfordshire Won 4-2
Mon 5th vs Cornwall Won 5-1
All 6 doubles matches won over the weekend

Team members:
Richard Owen (10)
Laurie Potter (11)
David Reid (12)
Dan Shiner (12) 6 wins out of 6 matches playing top
Tom Wand (11)

The 5 players live throughout Gloucestershire but all train at Oxstalls TC, Glos.
This is a very significant achievement for Glos Junior Tennis, a small rural county beating teams who can choose from cities the size of Newcastle. This success has been earned off the back of the the efforts of the Glos CPO (County Performance Officer) - Simon Pender who has raised the standards since his arrival in Gloucestershire in Feb 2002 and a testament to the hard work of the players at the Oxstalls Tennis Centre who met for indoor squads throughout the winter.

For further info contact:
Simon Pender 07811 344990

Posted at 10:09 PM [link]

Friday, May 09, 2003

Junior County Cup - Boy’s under 13 team win

Congratulations to the County’s 13 and under Boy’s Team of Richard Owen, Laurie Potter, David Reid, Dan Shiner and Tom Wand who represented Gloucestershire in Division Six of the Junior County Cup played at The Coombe Dingle Sports Centre, Bristol, over the May Bank Holiday weekend.
All the boys are members of East Glos - the County’s only Performance Club - three of whom will be eligible to represent the County in next year’s competition. The team beat Northumberland 5 - 1, Bedfordshire 4 - 2 and Cornwall 5 - 1. This is a very good result for such a young team and we look forward to next season when they will be playing in Group 5. Special congratulations to Dan who won all six of his matches.
The County Performance Officer for the County, Simon Pender, was very pleased with the result despite the team beating the boys from Cornwall - his home County.

Posted at 7:44 AM [link]

Thursday, May 08, 2003

Wimbledon Junior Championships

These will begin on the outside courts during the second week of the Championships. Matches will start at 11.00am.

Posted at 9:06 PM [link]

Wimbledon film

The All England Club has entered an agreement with the production company Working Title Films to assist in the making of a film 'Wimbledon', a romantic comedy starring Kirsten Dunst and Paul Bettany.
Some scenes will be filmed during this year's Championships followed by extensive filming during July and August.
The film is due to be released in autumn 2004.

Posted at 9:03 PM [link]

Wimbledon prize money

The total prize money for this year's Championships will be £9,373,990.00 a 9.5% increase on last year. In addition there will be a 'per diem@ payments to help with accommodation costs and travel expenses - this is especially helpful to young players starting out on their tennis careers.
The gentlemen's singles winner will receive £3,146,680.00 up some 9.5%.
The Ladies' singles winner will receive £2696.560.00 up some 9.7%.

Posted at 9:01 PM [link]

National Wheelchair Tennis Championships - Oxstalls I.T.I.

Top seed Jayant Mistry (Leicestershire) won his 10th national title when he defeated second seed Kevin Plowman (Yorkshire) 6-2, 6-4.
The womens main draw was won by Kay Forshaw (Warwickshire) 6-2, 7-5 by beat the British number 1 and six times national champion Janet McMorran (Hereford and Worcester).
Gloucestershire's only competitor in this year's event, Paul Ballinger, had a chance to claim two titles. However it was his first tournament (he has only been playing for a year) and he lost to Pat Seaward (Surrey) 6.0 in the final of the Men's Novice Singles. Paul, from Cheltenham, joined up with Robert Nethercroft for a round-robin Novice's Doubles, but they were unable to beat the Jerseypair of Kevin McDonnell and Keith Vibert going down 8-2.

Posted at 8:58 PM [link]

Tuesday, May 06, 2003

National Wheelchair Tennis Championships - Oxstalls I.T.I. - photos

We have a few photos from the recent Wheelchair National Championships held at the County Indoor Tennis Center. The winner of the event was Javant Mistry seen here receiving his trophy.The presentations were made by Sam Smith, ex-England No 1, and Sir J Cass, President of Tennis for Disabled and ex-President of the Lawn Tennis Association.A very special mention must go to the Gloucestershire player pictured here, Paul Ballinger, runner up in group C, and only being playing tennis for one year!

Posted at 11:59 PM [link]