The weekend of the 8th/9th February saw 16 wheelchair tennis players from around the country descend on Loughborough's Dan Maskell Tennis Centre for the first annual Loughborough Wheelchair Tennis Open.
Of the 16, who travelled from as far away as London and Scotland to enter, it was particularly pleasing that there were four local players in the draw, Mark Esho of Burton on the Wolds, Idris Popat of Leicester, James Shaw of Ruddington and Rob Ghahremani of Nottingham.
Most players arrived in Loughborough on Friday where they took part in a 2 hour pre-tournament training camp and then 4 match courts were in action throughout from 9am to 5pm on Saturday and Sunday.
The standard was high with former World Top 100 ranked player John Lambert picking up the singles title with a 6-2, 6-1 win over Keith Thom, and the doubles title with partner Scott Smith winning 6-2, 6-0 against Rob Ghahremani and Craig Nicholson .
Local player Mark Escho partnered Lynn Broughton to win the B Draw Doubles and Gordon Wild won the B Draw Singles. But match of the weekend was arguably the consolation doubles final though, in which local players Shaw and Popat narrowly missing out to Francis and Pegram 7-5, 6-7, 10-7 in front of a packed balcony.
Former Loughborough LTC player and two time tennis Paralympian Dave Phillipson also dropped in on Sunday to present the trophies to the winners and runners up.
The event was run by local organisation Inside Out Tennis, with Loughborough’s Martyn Whait as tournament organiser and Patrick Smith as tournament referee.
The event was also supported by Inside Out Tennis’s coaching team and families, and the ball boys and girls, Emma Case, Maddie Glass, Matt McNamee, Thomas Campsall, Murray Leishman, Toby Shanks, Matthew Salmon and Louis Marsden were from Loughborough LTC.
Additional support for the event came from the Tennis Foundation, Tennis Leicestershire, Loughborough's Cooking Made Simple, who helped feed the players after Friday’s training camp, and The T-Shirt Factory, who kitted out the tournament team and ball kids.
If you’d like to know more about wheelchair tennis coaching or anything else tennis related, visit www.insideouttennis.com and contact the team.