The sun shone for Andover Lawn Tennis Club’s first adult tournament of the year. The flowers bloomed and, surrounded by the trees at their Balksbury home, the competition got underway.

It is named after Major Walter Clopton Wingfield who introduced the first commercial version of tennis in 1874. It was designed for both men and women to play on their croquet lawns and was initially played on an hour- glass shaped court. That soon changed and within a few years the new “lawn tennis” had spread all over the world.  

Luckily we don’t need to own croquet lawns to play now. The club is open to all and has excellent facilities with outdoor and indoor courts.

The pairs were drawn and two groups played a round-robin format to find the finalists.

The tournament is always played with a sliding handicap system. If you win the first game, you start the next at minus 15 and the handicap grows if you win more games in a row. The result is that most contests are extremely close.

In the first group, Christine Pickford and Michael Cooke, and Flavia Zamfir and her partner Peter Evans were the most consistent. Flavia and Peter went through to the final as a result of winning their match with Chris and Michael.

In the second group, the top two pairs were Clare Thain and Harvey Stuart and Louise Martin and Martyn Isherwood. Once again a narrow win in the match between them put Louise and Martyn through to the final.

Louise and Martyn put up a good fight aiming to take control of the net but greater consistency overall with powerful accuracy from Flavia meant that the trophy went to her and Peter.

Andover Advertiser:

In beautiful weather and with close matches as well as a cream tea, the afternoon was thoroughly enjoyed by participants and spectators alike.