Newry Tennis Club

Two ladies matches held on Monday afternoon with Carmel using her loopy topspins and drop shots to good effect against newcomer Emily. This was a main draw match whilst in the Shield, Denise recorded her first singles win by despatching Sinead. We will hopefully see both of them play more often in the coming year.  On Monday evening, there was a lot of bread served as five of the six matches had a bagel in the scoreline! Jamie Campbell returned to the Newry singles event after a couple of years living in Dublin and drew his friendly neighbour John. As a former club coach Jamie proved to have the winning formula tonight. At the same time, John’s son Matthew was in awesome form against last years doubles champ Rory. Shane McAteer opened his campaign for a fifth successive closed title with a more than routine drubbing of Russell, he has definitely added more aggression to his shots.  We now have a second Shane at the club and this one, bounced back from facing Giby to oust Gary Smith. Shane brought with him a posse of support! That leaves the highlight of Monday, with Cormac using an improved forehand and a consistent game to outfox last years Plate winner Sean Pearce. Sean had won two recent friendlies between them but it is a more tense event in a tourney and Cormac always kept his head and after claiming the first set came back from an early deficit in the second to go through.

We had four matches on Tuesday, In what was the best schedule yet. Gerry Sweetman and James O’Hare met for the first time. It is not easy for James being an organiser and player at the same time as often your mind is elsewhere. Gerry proved too steady as he has a game that rarely anything can go wrong with and his double handed backhand is the best in the club. So straights for Gerry but an interesting battle. Newcomer Conor and teenage sensation Kaden played out a tremendously close match and we finally had our first Champions tiebreak of the tournament. Kaden held out in the exciting tiebreak to progress. That left the two adjourning courts of 1 and 2 with McAteers in action. There was a packed gallery to see the enticing match between Marty Keenan and Malachy Gerard. Both are passionate about their tennis (understatement) and give little away (another understatement) as we watched the highest standard of tennis yet. At times it was cagey with neither giving an inch, at others, full out hitting. Marty had the edge with his variety of shots whilst as we know Malachy can retrieve and compete like no one else out there. The spectators were enthralled as Marty progressed just as the sun began to set for the night. There is probably some poetry for here but find it yourselves! Shane was busy with a Mixed Doubles with newbie Eve but he was catching as many glimpses as he could to see the prime Men’s Singles.  It must have been daunting for Eve playing such a high profile match but she held her own as Carmel and Cormac tried to breakthrough the formidable skills of Shane. In two tight sets they just failed to find an answer to that conundrum. Many have asked before and many will ask again how you beat him on these Newry courts!