Yvonne and Jamie sweep to victory in Alan Saker tournament

This year’s Alan Saker tournament was held on Sunday 14th June in the blazing sun and saw some excellent performances …and one or two some of us would rather forget!

In the ladies tournament Keren and Shiv never quite reached their peak form to finish 3rd and 4th leaving it a 2 way battle between Svetlana and Yvonne for the cup. With Svetlana’s famous drive volleys and her even more famous Russian exclamations it all rested on the Twyford Tennis Club count-back system – not quite as complicated as the ‘Duckworth-Lewis’ rule in cricket but still way beyond our resident scorer and maths teacher Johnny.

But it was Yvonne who held on to win by less than a point thanks to some high scoring pairings with Big John and Nic. She then made it a double celebration by avoiding food poisoning from the BBQ.

The mens was equally close at the top but at the bottom Peter left it a bit late to get in his stride whilst Nigel failed to get into anything at all. Despite some astounding acrobatic leaps Jonathan and his hat just failed to hold off a late surge by Asi who in turn had to bow down to the mighty Mr Penney who was on fire until he stopped for lunch. In a creditable 4th place was Stephen with 34 showing a ruthless streak with a couple of 8-pointers.

As with the ladies it all came down to count-back with Big John and Nic ending on 37 points just 1/3 behind the winner. With John offering up a reasonable excuse of a new baby and sleepless nights, Nic offered up his own excuse of eating too many sausages and wearing his cap in a ridiculous fashion.

 And so the winner was Jamie, fresh back from a week’s coaching and not only playing well but also looking far too healthy and relaxed – how annoying!.

Thanks to everyone who played or who came to watch and to Johnny for his whistle blowing and mathematical prowess.

Hopefully we’ll have another tournament later in the summer so keep an eye out for details.