The tournament was established in 2008 as a Grade 2 British Tour and was run alongside a Grade 4 junior event. It achieved Grade 1 status within 12 months and this year has seen our junior tournament achieve Grade 3 status. Last year through the efforts of our tournament committee in attracting new sponsors to tennis we were able to offer prize money to the players which doubled every other Grade 1 event in the UK.
Our prize money was 1500GBP (Winner) and 1000GBP (R/up). This compares with 750 and 450 pounds for the other 30 British Tour events that are held. Richard Joyner who is the LTA Director of the British Tour described ST&SC as the biggest and most successful British Tour event in United Kingdom.
The event is a national tournament run locally and last year attracted 250 male/female professional tennis players, 30 of whom were world ranked on the ATP circuit. This year we will also attract a further 200 juniors, that is from 8 years old to 18 years of age again from around the UK. Such is the demand to enter our tournament we have approached Cheam Sports who have agreed for us to use their courts. The tournament is run by appointed officials from the LTA with the use of umpires and ball boys on finals day.
Our sponsors are numerous and very generous and this year they have contributed 15,250 GBP to our tournament Our sponsors include Harley Medical, ICBGroup, Boadicea, Perfect Deals, Aspect Web Media, Flight Centre, Mad Lilies, David Beckman Company & Art Rebellion. This is fantastic for our event as each year we bring new money and companies into tennis. Our finals day sponsors lunch is already sold out which means finalists will be able to play in front of a sizeable crowd.
One of the features of the tournament is to raise money for the Royal Marsden and last year we raised 4000. Ross Hutchins was the main speaker at our event.
This year ST&SC are delighted to announce that Tim Henman will be running a clinic on Tuesday 19th August. This we hope will include children who are receiving treatment at the Marsden. This is currently in the hands of the Marsden who will advise me if they can encourage some of their junior patients to attend. The clinic has already sold out with juniors from ST&SC and Cheam Sports attending. Each child is paying 10pounds which will go to the Marsden. In addition George Ioannou from Art Rebellion has created a painting of Tim Henman. 20 copies are being made which Tim will sign and then each one will be sold to raise money for the Marsden. Miles Maclagan, an Honourary member of ST&SC will present one of the paintings, signed by the children to Tim as a momento for his day at ST&SC.
Each evening matches are scheduled and members and visitors are very supportive of the event. Our kitchens sold out of food on 4 days last year.
We are delighted that Cheam Sports has supported us and we look forward to what will be another classic year of tennis played at Sutton Tennis & Squash Club.
Steve Tiddy
Sutton Tennis & Squash Club
This year's tournament is running from 17 - 23 August. To view the entry list type in code SUR14S1910 on the LTA 'Find a Competition' page of the website: http://www.lta.org.uk/Competitions/Search/