HUNDREDS of players from across the country competed at Derby's David Lloyd's week-long Winter Open tournament. Youngsters under the age of eight to adults over 35 were invited to the clubs grade 3 competition, with more than 260 entries received.
Notable performances from Derbyshire players included Katy Wilson's run in the 18-and-under girls' singles, in which she won the title without dropping a set. Teenager Curtis Clarke also reached the finals of the men's singles – just missing out on the spoils against the draw's top seed.
Dave Barnes, junior racquets manager at David Lloyd, said it had been a popular tournament with some fantastic results. He said: "We had a really good entry and, although a few people decided to withdraw, we ended up with 239 players taking part, which is great. About 30 of these were adults and the rest were kids. We then had quite a few children and adults watching at the sides and I think they were impressed by the standard of tennis on display.
Dave continued "We had quite a lot of categories for people to compete in, from the eight-and-under and mini-red and mini-orange tournaments through to the men's over-35, with everything else in between. We had people coming from all over – there was a group of 12 kids from Cornwall who came up for the whole week. The atmosphere was very good and I think we were building on the success of the tournament we held this time last year, which we had hoped to repeat. But it was a big team effort putting everything together and I think everybody did a fantastic job."
Wilson, of Pinxton, received a bye in the first round, before beating Gabriella Hattersley 6-1, 6-0 to reach the 18-and-under semi-finals. Her place in the final was confirmed after she received a walkover from opponent and top seed Ellie Horton. The number four seed took full advantage to beat Jennifer Gadsby 7-5, 6-1 for the title.
Clarke, of Normanton, won 6-3, 6-0 against Christopher Egan Morriss in his opening match and took out second seed Christopher Wood 6-3, 6-2. The unseeded player followed this up with a 6-2, 7-5 victory over Jacob Whalley, also unseeded, but lost 6-1, 6-2 in the final against top seed Alexander Grocott.
Barnes said: "The pair had some great performances. Curtis did very well to progress so far in the men's singles and has shown some real improvement in the past few years. Katy had already struggled against Gabriella in the final-set tiebreak of their 16-and-under match but, when it came to the 18-and-under, she was able to go out all determined and beat her 6-1, 6-0 – it was brilliant. There were also lots of great performances from youngsters outside the county. One lad, from David Lloyd Marlborough, won the eight-and-under and he was a talented little player. He was only beaten once and that was in the round-robin stage against Max Williams, of Ashbourne, who was also very impressive."
Barnes said: "There's nothing better than a tournament like this, particularly for youngsters, to test the skills you have been learning. You also can't get away from the fact that tennis is a competitive sport and it is at tournaments like these that people get used to that element of the game."