The Finals of this week long LTA Mens and Ladies Open Tennis event were played on Saturday 9th January 2009 at the Billesley Indoor Tennis Centre, Birmingham, in front of an appreciative crowd of spectators. Despite the arctic conditions outside, the tennis played indoors was of a very high quality and once again justified Billesley’s position as an important tournament venue for this exciting event, as part of the LTA Professional Winter Tour.
The Men’s first prize of £750.00 was won by Davis Cup player Josh Goodall, ranked 303 in the World. In an exciting match he defeated Warwickshire LTA’s Andrew Fitzpatrick, ranked 1492 in the World, 6-3. 6-3. A match that was much closer than the score suggests. Fitzpatrick took the second prize of £450.00
In a very good first round match, Warwickshire’s David O’Leary had defeated the second seed, David Rice 6-4, 6-4 . O’Leary then went on to lose a close match, in the Semi Final, to Andrew Fitzpatrick 2-6, 6-2, 7-6(7-1)A very strong entry provided a week of eventful and riveting men s tennis.
In the Ladies event, the £750.00 first prize was won by 16 year old Ruth Seabourne,from Surrey, who beat former Edgbaston Priory Club National League player, Jasmin Clarke, 6-0, 6-4. Clarke took the £450.00 Second Prize.
Warwickshire’s Celia Fraser, who trains at Billesley with the Edgbaston Priory Club’s High Performance Centre, defeated fellow Warwickshire player, Lottie Fox. In the second round. Fraser then lost a well fought match in the Quarter finals to Sabrina Bamburac. These events are sponsored by Aegon and funded by the LTA as part of the completion programme aimed at providing events for players who wish to progress to top international status in ATP and WTA events.
During the Prize giving ceremony the Billesley Indoor Tennis Centre was highly praised by the LTA Referee, Andy Fyffe, who said that the service and friendly welcome extended by the staff to the tournament players and officials made it the best tournament venue of the whole Tour and they all looked forward to returning next year. Prizes were presented by Birmingham City Council’s Gary Abraham who thanked all the players for both the quality of their play, and also for the efforts that they had all made to get to the event through snow and ice conditions.
The Centre staff excelled themselves on Friday evening by spending 3 hours clearing 4 inches of snow off one of the outside courts, in order to provide enough courts for the visiting public the following day. They were rewarded for their efforts with bright sunshine, on Saturday morning, that melted the scrapings of snow still left. By 10.30am there were staff smiles all round as the first of the paying public, well wrapped up against the cold, were happily playing a brisk game of tennis in the open air.
Congratulations to the Centre Manager and to all the staff involved in providing such a great event.
Mervyn Stone.
Chairman, Warwickshire LTA.