The tournament got under way on Friday night with the Seacourt junior pairing of Giles Gunning and Jess Garside storming the group with a string of fine wins with exceptional play that belays their tender years. Second place saw Carolyn Armstrong-Smith and Andrew Falk put in a good performance to secure second place in the play off. Group two saw Diane Binnie and John Horley produced a string of excellent wins to reach the qualifying stages, where they were joined with Lucy Hutchinson and Peter Swiss. Group 3 saw an exciting round robin with the aggressive partnership of Gabriel Savage and Clive Turner going through to the knock out stages where they were joined by Seacourts own, Jackie Carter and Geoff Oldland who excelled after a nervous start.  Group 4 was equally as exciting with John and Ros Hedges testing their strength of marriage by teaming up and going through and mother and son partnership, John and Penny Lumley proved too hot to handle and also qualified through. LRTA chair lady, Alex Garside teamed up with Spencer Davies and what a partnership they were, cruising into the knocks stages by only dropping 8 games and Maria Stokes and Kevin Nelson battled hard with the rest of the group to sneak into the latter stages.

The players were treated to a superb Saturday evenings dinner at Seacourt and the chef, Dan Watts pulled out all the stops with a banquet worthy of champions. The Chair of LRTA, Alex Garside spoke eloquently of the ladies game and thanked Chris Halliwell and James Meek for their generous sponsorship of the event and for their continued support.

There were too many fine and notable performances on Sunday during the knock out stages but the semi finals saw Lucy Hutchinson and Peter Swiss take on the formidable partnership of John and Penny Lumley in a breathtaking match which saw both pairs at the top of their game but it was Lucy and Peter who found the winning combination of shots to win the encounter and reach the final. The second semi final was even more exciting if that is possible! Alex Garside and Spencer Davies took on Clive Turner and Gabriel Savage in an intense semi final which boiled down to the last point! ... With a little bit of local knowledge, Alex and Spencer found the shot to reach the final.

The final was watched by an expectant and packed dedans. Lucy and Peter started the match in an aggressive and positive way which took Alex and Spencer by surprise and lost the first 3 games!  The match looked like it was all over when Lucy and Peter reached 7.2 and Alex and Spencer didn’t look like they had any answers to the thrashing they were undertaking but a lucky point swung in their favour and they snuck a game (3/7) and the balance of power shifted sides, despite Lucy and Peter attacking every shot and pulling out all the stops to try and secure a victory.  Every forty all game went to Alex and Spencer until the match, inevitably was tied at 7/7 40 all!! A huge rally, with impossible gets from all, but it was Alex and Spencer’s day as they won the match 8/7 to a rapturous applause from the players and spectators alike.

A big thank you to Alex Garside and Lucy Hutchinson for all their tireless work behind the scenes to ensure the competition ran like clockwork and again to Chris Halliwell and James Meek for their generous sponsorship of this popular LRTA competition.

Reported by: Dan Jones