Our 21st Anniversary celebration continued with a further 57 hearing impaired children from 5 schools from across the North East taking part in the tennis event at Tennis World, Middlesbrough.
This brought the total taking part in our 21st year, including the mini tennis event a month ago, to 119. The 30th April amazingly brought summer weather to the event allowing all nine groups to be played on the outside courts in brilliant warm sunshine.
The children divided into 9 groups and played round robin matches in their groups, with each match the best of 7 points. On completion of their group matches we moved into knockout semi-final matches culminating in 4 finals, 13 & Under Boys & Girls and 16+ Boys & Girls. Once again we saw some close and very competitive matches with Hanson School, Bradford winning 2 titles and St Johns School, Wetherby and Sandhill View, Sunderland one each.
Tournament finalists were:
Girls 13&U - Georgie Paul (Hanson) bt Megan Starkey (St Johns) 5-7, 7-5, 7-5
Girls 16&U - Lauren Brooks (St Johns) bt Kimberleigh Fitchett (Sandhill View) 7-6, 7-5
Boys 13&U - Sufyaan Mohammed (Hanson) bt Ibrahem Ramzan (Hanson) 5-7, 7-5, 7-6
Boys 16&U - Ryan Thompson (Sandhill View) bt Stephen Hinks (Castleford Academy) 7-2, 7-4
We were delighted to welcome Catherine Fletcher (seen on the right above), National Deaf Coach, who travelled from Swindon to be with us. Catherine, who is keen to increase tennis participation for the hearing impaired, took time out to speak to the teachers and children during the day as well as assisting with the umpiring of various groups. Our sincere thanks to Catherine who during the lunch break had a 15-20 minute hit with 11 year old, hearing impaired, Eve Murray from Yarm.
The tournament is run and sponsored by Durham & Cleveland LTA.
The main picture shows all 57 with their commemorative medals at the end of the event.