Red Maid's School finish National runners-up at this year's AEGON Team Tennis Schools Championships!
The AEGON Team Tennis Schools Year 8 and 10 finals took place at the Bolton Arena, Lancashire. The competition, which provides Secondary School students the opportunity to play regular competitive tennis, has seen students competing in local leagues since March, before progressing to regional knockout and quarter final rounds.
Over 2000 school teams entered the competition and the Red Maids’ Year 7/8 Team made it to the finals this weekend. Having won the Bristol League, they knocked out all the other regional teams to become South West Champions.
On Friday 4th December, the Red Maids’ Team of Alice Snart, Laura Sainsbury, Ellie Yuill and Stephanie Allen, traveled to Bolton along with three other schools from around the country to compete for the Year 8 title. During the weekend, the girls had to play against each school, with each girl playing a doubles match and a singles match; therefore 6 matches were played against each school.
After Day 1 and 11 hours on court, The Red Maids’ team was in joint first place with Queenswood Tennis Academy. On the second day, despite some amazing rallies and some very close matches, Red Maids’ lost to Queenswood.
This means that The Red Maids’ Tennis Team is the number 2 team in their age group in England, Scotland and Wales – a fantastic achievement!
“We are immensely proud of the girls,” said Isabel Tobias, Headmistress, “They are the best Team in the country from a school that is not a Tennis Academy and Stephanie Allen was the youngest girl playing in the National finals! The girls were tremendously supportive of each other, both on and off the court and our thanks must also go to the parents who made the long journey to support the girls. This was the culmination of months of hard work and thanks must also go to our dedicated PE staff who have nurtured the girls amazing talents”