This year’s Championships unfortunately had no Ladies competition due to lack of entries, and despite the absence of the defending champions in the Men’s events there was a good size entry warranting the need for a well contested qualifying event. The 4 players who successfully qualified for the main draw were James Whetton, Sean Cove, Grant Mercer and Patrick Talbot, however, no one managed to defeat their higher rated opponents in the round of the last 16.
The quarter finalists were mainly composed of some of Cheshire’s most promising young players fresh from success at the Junior County Championships. The pick of these matches was a really hard fought and close contest between Jac Newis (Heswall), the number two seed and Luke Wellens(Oxton). Luke just took the honours winning 6-4, 7-6(6). Luke could not repeat this performance in the semi final against James Keighly (Heswall), whose stronger serving and ground strokes made the difference. In the other semi final Sean Sivewright (Prestbury) met Jordan Grocott (Congleton) in a repeat of the U.18 Junior Championships final. The result was the same with Sean’s consistency and variation making the difference.
The final was as expected, a close encounter with Sean’s excellent returning of James “big serve” allowing him to break early in both sets, and despite James best efforts in fighting back, Sean took the honours 6 – 4, 6 – 4. To back up his Under 18 singles win with his first Senior’s title is an excellent effort, and Sean should be justifiably proud of his achievements.
The doubles final was contested between favourites Alex & Jordan Grocott, and Matt Laird & Lucas Taylor. The Grocott brothers justified their number 1 seeding by winning convincingly in two straight sets.
