Chronicle 687

67 ST EDWARD’S CHRONICLE

Tennis By Ross Gore, Head of Racquets

Sardarova in the Shell girls. In the Fourth Form Keira Bradshaw established herself as a regular at the top of the girls’ team with Carter Tocknell and Scott Shi excelling in the boys’. It was great to see the boys pick up a win in the LTA National Schools Division 1 fixture against Cranford House. Special Events We sent two pairs to the prestigious Bradfield Invitational mixed doubles event featuring some of the best schools in the country. Matilda Henderson and Luca James placed 8th out of a field of 16. Martha Withers Green and Will Deslandes placed 10th overall winning the plate competition. During Gaudy Week, our Lower Sixth senior boys and the juniors were in action on the grass courts at Magdalen College. The boys all played two full days of tennis, totalling seven matches each against some very high calibre opponents including the Oxfordshire County team. The senior team consisted of Luca James, Oakley Tocknell, Nadim Attou and Nico Balke. Nico placed highest winning the consolation plate final against Abingdon. In the junior event the team consisted of two Fourth Formers, Carter Tocknell and Scott Shi, with Shells Charlie Waring and Andrey Suhkov making our four. It was Shell Charlie Waring who placed best overall after qualifying for the main draw by winning two of his three pool games. Charlie lost a nail-biting match to the Abingdon number one, 9-11 in the championship tie-break, before seeing off the Abingdon number 3 by winning 10-8 in another close tie-break. Charlie placed 13th out of 32 boys which was an amazing achievement given the standard. This year saw the introduction of some Padel Tennis into the racquets programme which was enjoyed and played by a wide range of pupils. Our external tennis coaching provider offered pupils the option to take private lessons in addition to the school coaching programme. We are now looking to expand our offering of squads and lessons in the winter terms so that we can continue to increase our ability to compete at the highest levels.

Our tennis players had some good contact time during the winter indoors at the Nuffield and a well-attended pre-season at the start of the Summer Term so they were eager to put their training to the test. Senior Girls Martha Withers Green was selected as the team captain this year having played a major part in last year’s first team. Sadly, Martha broke her arm and missed all but a handful of games. Despite this she still helped during sessions and supported the girls as much as she could. The girls got off to an excellent start with all three senior girls’ teams picking up wins against Bloxham. What was perhaps more impressive was that three of the six girls in the first team were Fifth Formers. Millie Tan and Romy Hunter secured great wins against Shiplake and against local rivals Tudor Hall. Tudor Hall had more strength in depth and our U18C team recorded the only win, giving Tudor Hall an overall 3-1 victory. Unfortunately our fixture with Pangbourne got cancelled due to the weather and with Oxford High not being able to field a senior team, we missed out on a couple of other fixtures we felt were very winnable. Senior Boys Will Deslandes was selected as the boys’ team captain following a great winter pre season. The boys lost a very tight opening match 4-5 away to Bloxham School. With a full-strength team available, the boys went on to record a resounding 8-1 win over Shiplake College. It has been a tough season for the boys with several of our stronger players finishing very early in the term following their IB exams. However this has given a positive opportunity for younger players to step up. Junior Club The Junior Club had another challenging year of competition overall, but several positives came out of the season. In the Shell, Charlie Waring and Andrey Sukhov are already showing promise. The Shell boys had good wins against Bloxham and Rugby. Pandora Pan and Tatiana Gross have done very well as have Bella Brickell, Clara Szafnauer and Alysia

Kiera Bradshaw