The afternoon of 28th July 2011 saw the inaugural RCRTC Golf Championship take place on the College’s very own 9 hole golf course.

After months of deliberating Mick Dean and I finally put our heads together and managed to achieve a reasonable turnout of 9 players. We were blessed with wonderful July weather and the course in superb condition – so much so, some of our Frilford members commented that the greens were better at the College!

The format was the standard of best gross score, best Stableford points, and some fun with closest to the pin. There were various highlights and lowlights as is always the case on the golf course. A particular highlight of mine being Mick Dean hitting Paul Kettle’s golf bag (with ball as opposed to club!) positioned only a couple of yards from the tee box from which Mick was playing. The ball then ricocheted backwards into the base of a nearby tree and became unplayable – I have certainly never seen this happen on a golf course before!

The local Bowyers Arms was the designated 19th hole and welcomed by all for a pint and some hearty food. The golf was keenly contested by both members and friends of RCRTC as well as some of our local friends from OURTC.

Thanks to Mick for liaising with the College and to all those who made the afternoon fun and enjoyable. There has been talk of perhaps two golf days next year with a potential tennis and golf tour to France in the future…. If Mick and I have anything to do with it you may be waiting a while!

There were prizes for pretty much everything from longest drive to closest to the pin, best gross and wooden spoon. See if you can tell which is which from the evidence below!

Watch out, the Radley ladies are out and about!  A number of us have been playing at other courts – representing the club or ourselves in the LRTA tournaments or just enjoying a change of scenery to our tennis.

First up in the (relatively) recent calendar was the Oxford vs Cambridge varsity match at Lord’s back in February – with the Oxford ladies’ team being captained by our own Maggie Henderson-Tew.

More recently, Julia Kent and Doris Siedentopf teamed up in the Tabley Vase, a ladies’ handicap doubles tournament held at Holyport – originally sponsored by Paul Tabley (hence the name) – and played in the form of a group knock-out with winners and runners-up in the groups meeting in the semi-finals.  Julia and Doris won their group, but succumbed 4:6 in the semi-final against Lucy Davies and Pam Tomalin.

Next up was the Mothers and Daughters, an annual tournament held normally on the first Sunday in September (this year on the second one) at Hardwick House.  This is also played off handicap and made up of mother and daughter pairs as the name suggests.  We had two Radley pairs (or at least one-and –a-half) as Julia Kent entered with June and Doris entered with Karen.  Neither of our pairs were successful in their groups or managed to take the spot of best runner-up for the remaining semi-final place, but great fun was had by all as evidenced by Julia’s comment:

“We were somewhat disconcerted to find out after we’d entered that the maximum handicap for handicap calculations was 60, later adjusted to 65 for our benefit. As I am about 67 and June is about 79, this was still a bit daunting. However, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, relaxed in the lack of any expectation that we might win any matches, and rejoiced when we came close to success in one of them. We’ll be back next year, and I’d encourage any other mother and daughter pairs to join in.”

The next weekend was the Leamington Ladies Doubles tournament which Rebecca Kashti entered with Candida Nicholls and Sarah Backhouse with Madeleine Grant (Radley therefore being represented in two half pairs).  Both pairs got through the group stage and both won their semi-finals, so the final had a Radley player on each side of the net.  Sarah and Madeleine won out 6:3.

Rebecca and Doris played in the British Ladies Handicap (Singles and Doubles) played at Leamington and Moreton Morrell.  This tournament is held in two separate divisions divided into different handicap ranges.

Rebecca and Doris receiving the British Ladies Handicap Division 2 Doubles trophy.

Sarah Backhouse has been to Aiken playing in a tournament there but is keeping the details so far rather quiet.

Finally, Radley had four entrants in the Under 21 LRTA tournament held on 27th November at Radley.  This was an excellent indicator for the future of ladies tennis.

For more detailed match reports and more fixtures, please go to the LRTA news page at www.lrta.org.uk.

Singles Handicap Tournament 2011

Club Championships 2011

Match Report No 2

The Boomerang is a doubles tournament where each team plays 4 matches in a pool of 5 or 6 teams. Each match consists of 4 sets – first to 8, and no player can play in more than 2 sets.

Our second match took place on Tuesday morning at 8am, which followed the Welcome Cocktail Party which took place at The Melbourne Club. Most of us then went out for the evening afterwards with your captain being the worst behaved having been seen drinking upstairs on the balcony of the
Supper Club.!!

The captain was further disadvantaged by a worker called Brendan arriving at 7am to pressure clean his hosts house and slipping on the wet leaves. The captain was seen by his hosts (in his night attire) holding Brendan’s hand and making sure that he didn’t lose consciousness. The paramedics were called and took over the care of the patient.

Our opponents were the RMTC Eagles, twice past winners of the Boomerang Cup. Their handicaps were much lower than ours, ranging from 21 to 35.

We arrived at the Cub at 7.45 and immediately went on court to practice and start the match at 8am. Nick and Euahna were the first pairing and combined well to win 8-4. We decided to pair Roger and Alfred together again and they had a slightly closer game, winning 8-6. Our third pairing was Euahna
and!! Roger who played well again and won 8-6.

The last member of the team to arrive was David Baldry who landed at 6.45am and who managed to arrive to see the first start of the first match at 8am – he obviously hadn’t had a problem at customs!!! Unfortunately, jet lag didn’t help his game, and he and Alfred lost 5-8.

So the Radley team has now won 2 matches, and if we manage to win one of our next 2 matches, we shall proceed to the last 16. Our next match is against the Harwick Hooligans at 8pm today (Wednesday), which is 9am Radley time.

It’s very warm and humid, and there is heavy rain. We’re all very concerned by the news and pictures of the floods in Queensland and now Brisbane.

We’re all having fun still.

[To find more about RMTC]

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Match Report No 3

We lost. Not by much. 2 sets all. 23 games won to 25 lost – I think – but does it matter? We lost !!! And it’s raining. Heavily.

I’ll send a fuller report when I wake up – 4 hours sleep having got to bed at 5am, and the sad news about Radley’s loss, has made me tongue-tied.!!!

A great evening at the MCC in the Long Room overlooking the wicket, and dancing afterwards at the RMTC until early morning did help the captain’s mood however. And now three of us are off to some valley or other for a wine tour. So life is not too bad !!!

More later
N
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The real tennis strategists/geeks were out in force trying to fathom the tactical intricacies and in particular the advantages of serving or receiving. When the handicap difference is extreme and the weaker player is serving, the stronger player can find it extremely difficult to force a change of ends. Conversely, if the stronger player is serving, he does not necessarily want to lay any chases and see him changing ends again!?).

The bottom line is that this is an immensely fun game for all, that awakened the body and brain on Jan 1st, 2nd and 3rd and resulted in an all male Boddington and Boddington related family final, thankfully won by the far more capable Ben and Rupert. 

The worldwide rights to this new game have graciously been ceded to me [by inventor – Chris Ronaldson] in the hope that Match of the Day may soon have some serious competition! Will do my best but, if not able to reach these modest heights as quickly as we would all like, roll on Jan 1st 2012!

Andrew Leslau 

[Ed: Next year's event will include additional sporting and social challenges for participants and anyone foolish enough to be in the vicinity and will have the health warning "May Contain Nuts!]

In general members said they:

• are content with the cost structure
• would like us to restrict peak bookings to share opportunity to play at prime times
• do not wish to change internal competitions significantly although they asked us to consider some weekend tournaments and to add handicap doubles knockout to the calendar
• would like club evenings but other social events are not so important
• are content with the reception area but we should clean, cover or replace the chairs
• would support improvements to the first floor gallery to improve catering for social events and matches
• would like to be informed of news and events by email with details recorded on the club website
• are happy  to give their opinions via on-line surveys but no more than twice per year

Thank you to those members who offered to help the club in some way; we will be in touch.

Please click on the link below to see the result summary. Comments are also available on request although we will not share the names of contributors.

Club Survey 2010 – Results

Individual lessons are an excellent way to benefit from the undivided personal attention of the professionals. However, at times, players enjoy and benefit from sharing lessons with others. During these shared sessions the professionals design structured drills to enable players to practice specific shots.

Drills are popular with families and children because it enables players of different levels of experience and ability to share the cost while faving fun together . 

Please speak with Chris or John to discover more about these options.

DOUBLES

Radley College Tennis Court now has reigning club doubles champions.  The final started as a very closely contested affair with Simon Horobin and Paul Kettle winning the last 3 games to take the first set 6-5.

Mick Dean and Robert Warner elected to change receiver for the second set and quickly created a slight lead and maintained it to take the second set 6-3.  To this point all finalists were playing their part with excellent recoveries from well hit shots and rests swinging one way and then the other. However, while Robert continued to play without error and Mick lobbed into the grille at will Simon and Paul started to fade. The conclusion was clear and Mick and Robert clinched victory.

Ed Pearson - Club Singles Champion 2010

The singles final, 11 December 2010, was an exciting and closely contested match between Ed Pearson and Mick Dean.

Club members, College Staff and friends were presented with a treat to watch.  Played in excellent spirit throughout the match ebbed and flowed almost to the end with Ed emerging as the new club singles champion by 6-5, 5-6, 6-4. Ed is shown to the left holding the Chris Ronaldson Trophy.

 Many thanks to Chris for marking and to all who came along to support.

 Please click on the link below to view the draws and results.

Radley Club Championships 2010

Our first team of John Lumley and Andy Chinneck are in Division 3.  John is our junior professional while Andy, who provided temporary professional support for Chris before John joined us, is senior professional at the Oratory Court.  As expected Andy and John provided exciting tennis throughout the season improving their handicaps to 6.5 and 8.6 respectively.

Having topped the division they will play the pair from Canford in the play-off final at Radley on Friday 29 July 2011.

Watch this space and the club notice board for dates of matches, please come along and support.

Juliette Lambert captained our second team again leading Robert Warner, Ian Pearson, Pete Brown and Mark Beard to fourth place in Division 7 . This position qualified for entrance to the play-off semi-final, losing to an excellent team from the Royal Tennis Court. RTC went on to beat Oxford in the Division final.

The two links above lead to the results on the IRTPA website. Please note the match dates on that site are not always up to date so please check this page or the club notice board for correct details of home matches.