For the 9th successive year Billericay Lawn Tennis Club will be hosting the Essex Open Tennis Championships. This prestigious tournament is now 66 years old and has always been a very successful and well supported competition, attracting players of all ages and standard from all over the country.
We are delighted that the Sound Financial Group Ltd, have agreed to sponsor this year's competition and thank them for their generous financial contribution which has helped us to provide prizes/vouchers to all junior event finalists and prize money in the Men's and Ladies' open singles events. Entry fees also remain unchanged from last year.
The competition will include all three mini-tennis age groups (red, orange and yellow) and in order to help adults with weekday work commitments, men's and ladies' open singles events will take place from 5:00pm onwards (on request). In addition to the usual junior age group events, we are also staging doubles and mixed doubles events for adults and juniors.
Traditionally the Essex Open event has been scheduled to coincide with the first full week of the summer school holidays but this year it would have resulted in our event running through the first week of the Olympics. In recognition of the interest in the 2012 Olympics we made the decision to move the tournament date forward by one week. We understand that some schools term time may include Monday 23rd July, but if this is the case please indicate your unavailability for this date on your entry form and we will endeavor not to schedule matches during school time. Next year we will return to our normal scheduled week.
For the 7th consecutive year, David Fuchs has been appointed as our tournament referee and the competition will be managed by his company, Tennis Services UK Limited with the help of a team of highly qualified tennis officials.
Shortly before start of the tournament draws, orders of play and other tournament information will be published and this will be updated on a daily basis.
Billericay LTC boasts 7 artificial grass and 3 tarmac courts in landscaped grounds. All courts are floodlit and surround a well equipped central clubhouse incorporating a large lounge area. Catering will be provided throughout the tournament thanks to a team of volunteers. Scoreboards are provided for all matches and all courts have good viewing facilitiesWe welcome your applications and look forward to seeing you play at Billericay Lawn Tennis Club in what is a somewhat special sporting year.
Les Cambridge
Chairman
Billericay Lawn Tennis Club