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This tournament is in honour of a Plymstock member who died on court whilst playing for the club. The format is round-robin mixed doubles with a slight twist. The twist is that you play with your partner and then swap so you play against your regular partner.

Each year there are slight changes in the format needed based on the number and make-up of the entrants. This year for instance there were few ladies involved. Hence it was not so much mixed doubles, more unisex doubles. Sixteen players were involved and were split up into two groups, producing four players in the final competing for two trophies.

The weather was good enough, just. As often in the end stages of our season, the spectators found it a bit chilly at times. However at least it was dry. Players and spectators were treated to a cream tea (thanks Jess) and encouraged to nibble away throughout the afternoon.

The final foursome were Nicky Slight and Ian Cload, competing for the “blue group” trophy and Pete Brownlow and Martin Sandys playing for the “red group” trophy.

The winners were Ian and Martin. The official photographer produced the following rather blurry picture of them receiving their trophies. (Sorry).

Finally Dylys announced some achievements of this years ladies teams. The highest points score in division 5 was achieved by Jess Randell. A trophy was presented. The ladies team also won the sportmanship award for the league (covering all divisions and both mens and ladies.) Yet another trophy.

We are moving to a winter schedule. The main changes are :

• The Wednesday club session starts earlier at 1:30pm
• The Rusty Rackets evening session will cease and resume in the spring
• The Friday evening mens session moves from Friday evenings to Sunday afternoon

As ever, members can arrange their own games at any time when the courts are free and book the courts on the Schedule page

This tournament is in honour of a Plymstock member who died on court whilst playing for the club. The format is round-robin mixed doubles with a slight twist. The twist is that you play with your partner and then swap so you play against your regular partner. Pairings will be chosen to, as far as possible, even up the strengths of the pairs. The games won by each individual player are then scored.

The competition will be held on the afternoon of Sunday 9th October…weather permitting.

The nature of the competition is that all entrants have to play a lot of games and the number of entrants very much affects how many games and how long this would take. Based on previous experience the club committee have decided to limit the number of entrants to 16. If you wish to play please email the match secretary. If you do not have his email address then have a look at the club WhatsApp messages.

Good luck !

The finals of the club tournament were played on Sunday 25th September. The weather started out sunny and warm. It didn’t stay warm but it did stay dry all day.

The first two events were the ladies doubles, on court 1, simultaneously with the mens doubles on court 2.

Ladies Doubles

Clare Law and Nicky Slight won 6-4 6-1 vs Vicky Roberts and Anne Hughes

Notice the dark clouds. It was also a bit cold !

Mens Doubles

Dave Bate and Ian Cload won 7-5 6-2 vs Pete Hill and Mark Skerton

Two players, Ian (who was carrying an injury) and Nicky, were in every final and Dave was in the first two events. Jess was in the last two events. All four were thus involved in the next event, the mixed doubles. At the start of the day we were willing to play the best of three sets, but as the day wore on – and the spectators started to get a little cold and/or need to go home – it seemed more and more sensible to cut some corners. Hence the mixed doubles on reaching one set all was decided by a very short 7 point tie break.

Mixed Doubles

Nicky Slight and Dave Bate won 3-6 7-5 7-3 (tb) vs Jess Randell and Ian Cload

We finished with the two singles finals played at the same time. In this current era at the club, Jess in the ladies and Tim for the men are rarely seriously tested in singles matches. The draw didn’t involve seeding so it should be remembered that Dave Bate had scored some games against Tim in the process of losing in the first round.

Ladies Singles

Jess Randell won 6-0 6-0 vs Nicky Slight

Mens Singles

Tim Randell won 6-0 6-0 vs Ian Cload

Clare and Nicky compare their cups for being ladies doubles champions. Above was the only slightly more formal pose with Phil our chairman. In the foreground it should be noticed that the spectators have been rewarded with food and drink as well as tennis.

We now know the finalists.

Mens Singles : Tim Randell vs Ian Cload.

Ladies Singles : Nicky Slight vs Jess Randell.

Mens Doubles : Pete Hill and Mark Skerton vs Ian Cload and Dave Bate.

Ladies Doubles : Clare Law and Nicky Slight vs Vicky Roberts and Anne Hughes.

Mixed Doubles : Nicky Slight and Dave Bate vs Jess Randell and Ian Cload.

The date is Sunday 25th. Junior coaching ends at 1pm so we should give them 10 minutes leeway and arrive sometime around 1:10pm.

The order of events is not yet fixed and those players who are in two or more finals might like to make their preferences known.

Could last years winners bring their cups in please ? (Nicky, Adam, Margie, Jess, Tim and Phil.)

There are all the divisions and some other information on the P and D website

Each division had 6 teams and, normally, the top two would be promoted and the bottom two relegated. Regular readers will know that there was some complication with a side being dropped from the league which might change some divisions to have only one side relegated.
In the end it didn’t matter. Both mens and ladies teams were just outside promotion spots and well above relegation danger.

The mens results are a bit below…

The Ladies

The ladies came third.

The players were Jess Randell, Clare Law, Nicky Slight, Vicky Roberts, Karen Johnstone, Dylys Bradshaw, Anne Hughes, Debbie Bauckham, and Jane Williams. Well done to all of them.

Here’s how the points were won …

Date	Fixture		Players	Plymstock Points	Opposition Points
3rd May	Yelverton C	Home	JR CL NS VR	24	49
13th May	St Budeaux C	Away	JR VR KJ DB	63	19
17th May	Plympton D	Away	JR AH NS AW	67	22
24th May	Looe C	Home	AH CL DeB KJ	37	57
10th June	Hill Lane B	Away	JR AH JW DeB	26	57
16th June	Yelverton C	Away	JR DB JW KJ	46	40
5th July	Plympton D	Home	JR AH NS VR	54	40
12th July	St Budeaux C	Home	JR NS VR CL	57	23
20th July	Looe C	Away	JR AH VR KJ	68	26
26th July	Hill Lane B	Home	JR AH VR NS	39	52

The Men

The men came forth.

The players were Tim Randell, Dave Bate, Steve Maller, Phil Hughes, Dave Roberts, Doug Langford, Mark Skerton, and Adam Clynch

Thanks to all of you. Here’s how the points were won …

Date	Fixture		Players	Plymstock Points	Opposition Points
May 5th	Ivybridge C	Away	TR DB SM PH	28	69
May 9th	St Mellion	Home	TR DB SM PH	68	21
May 16th	Tavistock C	Away	TR DB SM PH	33	64
May 27th	Hill Lane B	Away	TR DB DR DL	43	43
June 6th	St Budeaux C	Home	TR DB SM MS	44	48
June 13th	Ivybridge C	Home	TR DB SM MS	58	31
June 27th	St Mellion	Away	TR PH DB MS	42	50
July 4th	Tavistock C	Home	TR DB MS DR	72	14
July 18th	Hill Lane B	Home	TR MS DB DR	50	48
July 29th	St Budeaux C	Away	TR SM PH AC	28	56

Going into the last game, the men had a slim chance of promotion and a larger chance of relegation. Promotion would require us to score at least 42 points to overhaul Ivybridge and, additionally, 9 points more than Hill Lane who would be playing at the same time. To add to the difficulty we were playing top of the table St Budeaux who still needed some points (8 to be exact) to be certain of finishing first.

Players, Ivybridge on the left, one of whom has left without us noticing. Plymstock left to right: Tim, Phil, Steve, Adam.

We had done the arithmetic of the relegation battle a couple of days before. The bottom two were to go down and St Mellion were well adrift of safety. Tavistock were 45 points behind us in next to last 5th place. It is possible to score 72 points each match and so 28 points would be enough.

Things changed a day before when we received an email saying Whiteford Road had been expelled from the league for failing to field a side twice. They were in division 3 but the effects rippled down the league and it looked like only one team would be relegated from our division 4.

Just before playing we decided that promotion was an unlikely prospect and avoiding relegation was the priority. We also decided that the Whiteford Road reprieve was not to be relied upon. So to increase our chance of enough points we paired the two strongest players. We will never know for sure but perhaps this was the right decision, Tim and Steve getting two sets against their number one pair and one set against the second pair, totalling 26 points. Phil and Adam also had a job to do and gained two points for our total.

Score thus St Budeaux 56: Plymstock 28.

Assuming our arithmetic is correct, promotion not achieved and relegation avoided, probably in 4th place.

The 10th and final match against top of table Hill Lane took place with Plymstock ladies in contention for promotion. The score was 39 :52 in favour of Hill Lane. At the time of writing we do not know if this will be enough to stay ahead of Yelverton, who will have had, in theory, an easier tie.

I heard that they had to leave at 4:30. It is a long way !

The points scored – Plymstock 68 vs Looe 26 must have helped the mood on the journey back. Go girls go !

Whilst the national picture has Tuesday 19th as likely to break records, in this little corner of England Monday 18th was the hottest of the summer. My in-the-shade reading in Wembury was 36°C.

The Plymstock mens team played anyway, helped by a strong easterly wind.

This was the 9th game of a 10 game season and Hill Lane were 10 points ahead in second place in the league table. The score was 50 points to Plymstock and 48 to Hill Lane, closing the gap enough to keep the pressure on, whilst probably not losing much ground to the chasing pack. (Some of this is guess work.)