The Andover Tennis Club Sarum League A team lost their first match of the season despite being back to full strength.

Their opponents, Winchester, needed a win and fielded an exceptionally strong team containing their ladies' doubles club champions Charlie Ames and Hannah Crawford and two of their most talented young male players home for the summer from their US tennis scholarships, James Crawford and Lloyd Harris.

In the first mixed rubber, Anthony Brown and Helen Eckersley were overpowered by the brother and sister pairing of Hannah and James Crawford. They quickly lost the first set 6-0 but put up more of a fight in the second losing 6-3. In the second mixed rubber, Claire Coomer and Andy Winnett lost two very tight sets 6-3, 6-4 with only a single service break in each. The match hinged on three or four big points which the Andover pair failed to capitalise on.

In the ladies' doubles, Claire and Helen got off to a flying start and won the first set 6-1. Their opponents played a more conservative and consistent second set and won it 6-4. In the men's doubles, Andy and Anthony lost 6-1, 6-4 and struggled to make any impression on the service games of either Crawford or his partner Harris. Despite losing 7-1 the Andover team thoroughly enjoyed this high standard of hard hitting tennis.

Success in their remaining three league matches should still see the team retain their league title.

The ladies' Hants and IOW team also lost 8-1 recently to Kingsley.

The match was much closer than the score implies with a tie break being closely lost by the second pair of Margaret Winnett and Glenys Chambers against the Kingsley third pair. The match was initially played on shale/clay courts until rain interrupted play and the remaining rubbers moved indoors to a hard court surface more familiar to the Andover players.

The aim of the Andover team this season was to a field a full team for each fixture knowing that success in this league would be tough.

Captain Claire Reid and her squad are now looking forward to playing their tennis next season in a league where they can be more competitive.

10:17am Saturday 19th July 2008

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