TALKING TENNIS - LOOKING BACK OVER A SUCCESSFUL YEAR

July 8, 2024

Things started well for the Senior Boys strong win over a young Hethersett side just before Easter, with George Snelling stepping up to join the usual squad. In the next round we faced a strong Hills Road and were a bit rusty however, we still managed to give a good account of ourselves with Luie Valentine winning both his singles and doubles when playing with Harry Philpott. Jofie Philpott battled hard which was all the more impressive considering his serious wrist injury and Luca Pantazis had a real ding dong with his opponent. That said we came up short and the final score was a 4-8 loss. This should not take away from what Luie, Luca and Jofie have achieved whilst playing tennis for the school and pinnacle of which was their 12th place finish in the Glanville Cup in 2022. Thank you to Luie for his great captaincy over the years and we all wish Luca well as he embarks on his tennis scholarship in Alabama, I have no doubt that tennis will continue to play a huge part as they move on from Norwich School.


The U15 team made up of: Rufus Snelling, Himash Amarawickrama, Lewis Hankinson, Belek McQuillin and Veron Hung, had an exceptional win over Wymondham College by 4-2. The result was in the balance until Lewis and Belek came through a thrilling tiebreak to secure the win. Hethersett were far too strong for us and have a good chance of progressing in the competition when it continues in September, although Belek did record our only victory of the evening. Next came Gresham’s and despite an unflattering scoreline of a 0-6 loss Rufus battled very hard at 1 in the singles saving numerous match points before being defeated 7-9 in the tiebreak. Belek did the same at 4 but was eventually edged out 5-7.


The U13 team consisting of: Lucas Berney, Josh Bond, Herbie Andrews, Ben Lowe and Toby Hankinson, were our most successful team retaining the county cup. There was a straightforward 6-0 win over Wymondham College. Then followed the match of the season against Hethersett. The match was all square after the singles with wins for Herbie and Toby, and then again after the doubles with Herbie being joined by Ben to win 6-2. Now followed a shoot-out tiebreak to decide the match and Lucas was joined by Herbie. The boys started strongly winning the first 3 points but then Hethersett took over and at 6-9 had 3 match points which came and went, as did another 10 or so! With a gathering crowd to cheer on the boys they eventually won the tiebreak 24-22! What a thrilling climax to a fantastic game of tennis. The team needed to rise to the challenge one more time against Gresham’s Prep which they duly recording a 6-0 victory and thereby winning the county cup for the second year in succession.


They will now go on to represent the county in the National stages of the competition in the next academic year so watch this space!

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