FOLLOWING the previous week’s success in the Borders Under-18s and Under-14s Confined Tennis Tournaments despite horrendous weather conditions, last week brought some dry and bright weather for the Under-16s, Under-12s and Minis.
The event saw quite a few players take part in their first Borders Confined and all acquitted themselves admirably on the Galashiels courts.
Nik Stingl (Kelso Orchard) added to his Under-14 boys’ singles title by winning the Under-16 singles as well, and is now off to London for the Road to Wimbledon competition.
Jessica Lemmon (St Boswells) supplemented her Under-14 girls’ doubles title by lifting the Under-12 girls’ singles and doubles with clubmate Lauren Flack.
Rufus McLean (Melrose Waverley) won the Under-12 boys’ singles and also the doubles with James De Bolle (Kelso Orchard), having beaten the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds en route.
The Under-16 girls’ singles final was a really tough match between top seed Tara Harvey (Duns) and No. 4 seed Kirsty Millar (Duns), with the latter eventually triumphing 6-4, 1-6, 12-10. Kirsty had previously beaten the second seed Sophie MacBrayne in their very close semi-final 6-2, 2-6, 10-3.
Sophie and Lynsey Robertson, having had a tough semi-final against Kirsty and Lucy Inglis 7-6, 2-6, 10-6, had a good victory over top seeds Tara and Nicola Berthelsen to take the doubles title.
The Under-16 boys’ doubles honour was won by Ross Bagley and Charles Weeks, from Berwick Tennis Club, who, in three sets, reversed their round robin result of 5-7, 1-6 against Angus Millar and Archie Robertson (Kelso Orchard) the previous day.
In the mini tennis Under-eights, nines and 10s singles events, all matches were very hard fought.
In the Under-nine boys’ round robin, three players tied for second place in one group, so percentages of sets and games had to be worked out to identify the second boy to go through to the knock-out section. Three boys tied for first place in another group, so set percentages were needed to identify the top two to go through.
A total of five matches in Under-nines and six in the Under-10s boys’ went to the final-set decider, one winning by 12-10 and four by 11-9.
Robyn Harvey (Duns) and Harris Brogan (Wilton Park & Hawick) were outstanding and took both the girls’ Under-nines and boys’ Under-10s events respectively.
Tennis Borders representative Christine Lawrie told TheSouthern: “It was great to see such good tennis from these young players, obviously the result of hard work by them and their coaches.”
She added: “It was good to have so many spectators turn out to support all the tournaments – they must have been amazed by the standard of much of the play.
“Galashiels is now lucky to have such a good tennis facility so hopefully the residents will make good use of it and help to form a good club which will begin to enter teams in the Tennis Borders various senior, veterans (40 and over), junior league and other competitions, and perhaps bring back some of the former glory days to Galashiels Tennis Club.”
The Tennis Borders committee members wish to add their congratulations to all winners and runners-up and thank the Borders Sport and Leisure Trust for the use of its Galashiels facilities, the referee and all volunteer court supervisors and umpires, those who ran the tuck shop, and all who donated goodies and/or raffle prizes and all patrons, parents and friends who supported this tournament.