In a week where the weather threatened to dampen the spirit and determination of the 32 teams competing for the National Championships title, top seeds Queenswood School girls and Reed’s School boys shone through the take home the 2011 titles.
Reed’s School were the defending national and world champions and their dominance of school tennis was never in threat throughout the week as the team won all four matches 8-0, despite facing some strong opposition at each stage. In a repeat of the 2010 final, Reed’s School came up against Bournemouth School in the final and won all four singles rubbers to take an unassailable lead.
Bournemouth School once again defied the seeding to reach the Final and gave the team from Surrey their toughest test of the week. Due to heavy rain overnight and further rain on Friday morning, the finals were moved indoors at nearby Gosling Sports Park.
Christian Throm-Jones and Harry Burley got Reed’s School off to a good start with comfortable straight sets wins. Jonathan Cornish came through a tough battle with Bournemouth’s Tim Prossor at number two singles and eventually prevailed 6-1, 6-7(5), 1-0(2) to allow Evan Hoyt to claim the title for Reed’s with a 7-6(4), 6-2, win at number one singles.
In the Girls competition, Queenswood School re-captured the title they last won in 2003 with a win over St. George’s High School from Edinburgh.
St. George’s proved to be very strong at the top of their line up throughout the week and this did not change as Joanna Henderson and Morven Mcculloch earned straight sets wins for the Edinburgh school. However, strong performances from Queenswood School’s Corinne Blythe and Erin Dickinson as well as retirements in the doubles rubbers meant that Queenswood School ran out 8-4 winners.
Pam Hall, in her last year as Director of Tennis at Queenswood School said: “This was an outstanding team effort by the players, the coaches from Gosling IHPC and the Queenswood staff. The girls played superb tennis throughout the week and thoroughly deserved their victory.
"Team events, particularly for girls, are very important as tennis is a generally a solitary sport and AEGON Team Tennis Schools events foster a great team spirit which enables many players to flourish and enjoy their tennis."
32 teams competed over four days at Queenswood School – 16 girls teams, 16 boys teams. A special mention must go to the two third placed teams who were Talbot Heath School in the girls competition and Reed’s School ‘B’ team in the boys competition.
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