The 2014 Notts LTA Annual Awards Evening was attended by over 220 guests at the Mapperley Plains Social Club. The Awards trophies were presented by Paul Hutchins, the LTA Tournament Director of the WTA and ATP Nottingham Open Tournaments which will be held at the Nottingham Tennis Centre this summer.
The evening started with a lively video review of Notts Tennis in 2014, created by Dave Everington.
Paul Hutchins then presented our retiring County Secretary, Ann Spalding, the LTA Meritorious Award for her dedicated and long service to tennis in the county.
Tickets from the free raffle were drawn and the lucky winners, Amelia Rajecki and Jacob Dunk were presented with Slazenger rackets and bags signed by Heather Watson. Jane Kemp collected a bottle of champagne as her nomination form was drawn at random from all the nominations received this year. Mansfield Tennis Club collected a box of Slazenger balls as a reward for submitting the most match reports last summer.
This was followed by Chairman of Notts LTA, Christopher Walker, giving another interesting and comprehensive review of the year’s tennis in the county from his Chairman’s report given at the AGM in December.
Christopher then presented the Mini Teams from the Nottingham Tennis Centre, David Lloyd Nottingham and David Lloyd West Bridgford medals for winning their Divisions in the Aegon Team Tennis Leagues.
After a refreshment interval, Paul Hutchins showed us a video of the major Grass Court tournaments that took place at Edgbaston and Eastbourne last year, to give us a flavour of what we can expect to see this summer in Notts with our own WTA and ATP tournaments.
Paul then presented the Annual Awards to the following well-deserved recipients:-
Most Improved Junior Girl: Olivia Corfe with Amelia Rajecki as runner-up
Most Improved Junior Boy: Johnny Lees with Jacob Dunk as runner-up
Best Individual Domestic Performance: Freya Christie, with Anna Buckley runner-up
Best Individual International Performance : Joshua Ward-Hibbert , with Luke Bambridge runner-up
Development Coach of the Year: Matt Benford with Simon Ashmore runner-up
Performance Coach of the Year: Chris Martin with Richard Morley as runner-up
Volunteer of the Year: Edward Benson, with Angela Donald as runner up
Team of the Year: Over 35 Ladies County Team, with the David Lloyd Nottingham Orange team as runner-up
School of the Year: Forest Town Primary with Fernwood School runner-up
Lifetime Achievement Awards: Jill Beardsell, Mary Prest and John Friel
(Click this link to read the nomination reports)
Rick Britton, our MC for the night who is also our LTA Councillor for Notts, presented the Senior County Colours to Sue Reesby, Chris Wood and Rebecca Wood and Junior County Colours to Alex Buckley, Amy Harrold-Vaux, Ross Lory, Pierre Luiggi, Eban Straker-Meads and Marcus Walters.
John Poxon, Chairman for the Notts LTA, stepped up to present the trophies to the winners of the Club Champions Tournament. The Mens singles title was won by Niral Nana from Mansfield; the Ladies singles by Maia Dunn from West Bridgford Tennis Club; the Mens Doubles by Chris Holmes and Barry Seamons from David Lloyd Nottingham and the Ladies doubles winners were Ann Brown and Nicola Coleman from Mansfield.
The evening concluded with the presentation of the Summer League and Short Format trophies.
A very busy evening and a real tribute to all the players, volunteers, clubs and coaches in Nottinghamshire.