Head Coach Vinny Duddy said that the Avenue Tennis Club’s annual Open Day on Sunday 3rd July was a fantastic success with lots of new potential members, adults and juniors, coming to the club and having some coaching and fun with the Avenue’s coaching team with probably the best weather of the year so far.
Starting at 10.30 am Barry Ramsden and Sam Stead took over 35 youngsters on court with the mini red balls (Under 8’s) and went through a series of racket coordination skills, serving and finished off with some fun games. Craig Phillips and Heather Duddy took almost 30 Orange Ball kids (8 to 10 year olds) on 2 courts where they practiced some specific shots. Nick Arnold went on court with almost 15 teenagers of varying standards and took them through a series of drills. Head Coach Vinny Duddy took 10 adults onto a court and went through some steps to a good service action and finished off with a fun doubles game. Vinny wanted to thank the ladies from the club Poo Jenkins, Jayne Sanders, Elaine Amos and Lynn O Dell who worked extremely hard to provide all the attendees with hot food and drinks and some excellent strawberry cream teas. The hot meat was provided by Julie Cameron from Tickle Your Taste Buds our local carvery take away. Gordon and Pat Hunter took care of the Pimms and Lenny Cameron worked hard behind the bar keeping everyone refreshed.
At 12:30 pm all the coaching stopped so that the Somerset Closed Finalists could play their match to find out who would be Somerset’s Number 1. The final was an all Avenue affair with Martin Hoyland beating the Avenue’s Tennis Coach, Craig Phillips from Brean (6 v 4, 6 v 4) in a really tight, hard hitting fast match. Martin and Craig then took on Somerset Men’s Captain Matt Bernard and James Deem to find the Somerset Doubles Champions. Martin and Craig won this interesting doubles match (7 v 5, 6 v 3). Vinny passed on thanks to Tony Pryce Sports, Prince Rackets demonstrator Peter Clarke and Cosseys Produce for their attendance at the club’s Open day.
The club is running a Wimbledon new members deal during July where new members can join the club for half the normal annual price. New adults will be entitled to 3 FREE Group Tennis Lessons and Junior membership includes FREE fun hour tennis sessions, on Friday evenings, with coaches Vinny and Nick.
The next BW Controls Ltd Red Ball Tournament is on Sunday 17th July from 11 am with a Mini Orange Ball Tournament organised for Sunday afternoon from 1. 00 pm, Yellow is on 23rd July and a Green ball on the 24th July.
Forms are now available for the Junior Tennis Camp which will run for 3 weeks over the school summer holidays on weeks 25th to 29th July, 1st to 5th Aug and 22nd to 26th Aug.
Details of the events and tennis coaching courses held at the Avenue Tennis Club can be obtained from the office (01278 782758) or from the club website (www.avenuetennis.com).