The announcement in April that England had endured the wettest 18 months on record (since 1836!) was a rather ominous start to the tennis season; and, unfortunately, we have not been blessed by the weather gods in the first half of the “summer” term, meaning we are yet to host a senior boys’ fixture on our chapel grass courts and lots of training sessions on the hard courts with the girls’ teams. Nonetheless, we have still managed to play plenty of tennis and enjoyed a successful start to the season, winning 5/7 matches under the captaincy of Seb B and excellent coaching of Mr Thomas.  

In our first senior game of the season on 20th April, we hosted an experienced Cromer Men’s team on the astros. For the only time this season (due to exams and injuries) we managed to field our strongest team, winning 5-1 and 9-0 respectively. Year 10 pupils Connor M and Ted K deserve a mention for convincingly winning all their matches, as does Liam M who played his final game after representing the 1^st VI over the past two seasons.

In our second fixture of the season, on 27th April, our senior boys’ teams travelled to Framlingham. The 1s narrowly lost 7-5 in a well contested fixture against a strong side. Liam (whose IB exams had just begun) was sorely missed, although Marc R stepped up and played brilliantly in his debut alongside Nikolaus P, as did Charlie R and Morris J in their 1^st team debuts. Meanwhile, our 2s again won comfortably, winning 9-3, with Alessandro D and Severin G winning all their matches.

The following week, on 4th May, the senior team were on the bus on the A140 once again, this time to RHS. Our 1st team bounced back brilliantly from the previous week’s defeat, winning 9-0, a perfect farewell to Nikolaus P and debut for Tomas R-C. Meanwhile our junior team kicked off their season on a positive footing, winning 12-3 on the grass against the RHS juniors. Connor M and Ted M continued their strong run of form, winning all their matches, whilst Arthur L, Emilio H, Fernando M, Myles D and Ulysses O made their junior debuts. However, the juniors met their match against a strong King’s Ely team the following week, losing 6-4.

This week, the U15a’s (Connor M, Ted K, Laurie W & George J) begin their LTA competition journey, against Hethersett, before playing Wymondham and Norwich next half of term.

 Meanwhile, the seniors thoroughly look forward to the return fixture on Cromer’s fantastic grass courts and the rescheduled Adney Paine Invitational, which was cancelled due to driving rain, hopefully this time on the chapel grass courts in the sun.