Coinciding with the second week of Roland Garros was the AEGON U12’s Clay Court Championships and Dorset U12’s number four ranked player Harry Butler was among those aiming to go all the way in the tournament. However, after a dominant 6-0 6-2 win in his first match in the singles draw against Tom Thelwall-Jones of Shropshire, Butler was narrowly beaten by almost the smallest of margins by Cameron Bowie from East Scotland 6-3 3-6 1-0 (5).
This was not to be the last time Butler and Bowie’s paths crossed in the tournament. In the doubles draw, Butler was partnering Surrey’s Jack Draper and the pair were playing as the number two seeds. A bye into the quarter finals then set them up with a match against West Scotland’s Cameron Kerr and Northumberland’s James Parkin. In truth, the number two seeds, Butler and Draper, found themselves able to play out a relatively straight forward match which ended 6-4 6-2 in their favour, which set them up with a semi-final clash with West Scotland’s George Baird and Butler’s singles conqueror Cameron Bowie, from East Scotland.
With the semi-final matches being played to a shorter set format of 4-game (two games clear) sets, the margin for error was smaller and this was perhaps Butler and Drapers undoing as they were beaten 5-3 4-1 to mark the end of their tournament run for both players. Butler was recently honoured at the Dorset LTA Awards as he was announced as the winner of the Player of the Year award after a tremendous 12 months in which the youngster won all his matches at the U14 County Cup as well as making his debut for Great Britain earlier this year.
By Harry Lund