A very busy summer season came to its conclusion recently at Castletown Lawn Tennis Club.

Following on from a successful Closed Club Championship came the club’s end-of-season doubles tournaments.

First was the junior competition which attracted an entry of 19 young players, followed by the seniors a couple of days later which attracted 22 entries.

The juniors played in two groups, with everyone facing each other in a tie-break to seven. In group one Jimmy Cope and Jasper Hill finished top after winning all their matches.

In second place were Seth Hornby-Wheeler and Ryan Perera only three points behind having lost only to Jimmy and Jasper.

In group two the final standings were even closer than group one. With an odd number of entrants, coach Neil Ronan partnered Emma Perera and beat Ewan and Matthew Coates by the finest margin 7-6, in turn finishing the group unbeaten.

The top two played each other to see who would become champions, and Jimmy and Jasper proved to be a great pairing, winning the final 7-4.

Similarly, the seniors played in two groups but, with more time available, played four games against each other pair in their group.

Using a sliding handicap, achieving a 4-0 win was very difficult and after around two hours of play the groups could not have been any closer.

Top of group one were Dave Bocking and Neil Watterson, closely followed by Will Watterson and Nick Fullerton only one game behind, with Caroline Davies and Lucy Kerr only one game further back from them.

Group two had a similarly close finish, with only four games splitting the whole group. Top of the group were Peter De Carte and Max Bocking, while losing out by only one game were Kirree Ronan and Amanda Munro.

The final was played as a best of five games with no sliding handicap. It was a very level match but it looked to be heading the way of De Carte and Bocking.

But Max’s dad Dave was not giving up and, with Neil Watterson on court with him, they managed to turn it around and take the victory 3-2 to win the Arnold Osborn Cup.

These awards along with the Club Championships and a number of other awards will be presented at the club’s annual prize presentation and dinner.

The club continues with its club sessions on Wednesday and Friday mornings plus Saturday afternoons right through the winter. Play is possible in all conditions on the club’s all weather astroturf courts.

The club looks forward to taking part in the annual triangular Todmorden Shield in the next few weeks, followed soon after by the club’s Halloween tournament and finishing 2024 with its Christmas competition.

NEIL RONAN