December weather can always be unpredictable but Castletown Lawn Tennis Club enjoyed dry and relatively calm conditions for an afternoon of festive fun at the Malew Street courts last Saturday.

The juniors started the day with some very spirited play from the youngsters. The eventual finalists were Leo Kerr and Jonah Graham, with the latter becoming overall Christmas champion.

All the juniors played really well and had a lot of fun overcoming the ‘naughty’ cards and revelling in the bonus ‘nice’ cards.

The juniors were invited to join the seniors in their fancy dress tournament and it was great to see such a crowd of 30 players from around the island.

Club coach Neil Ronan had his work cut out ensuring all the tie-break matches – with the all important ‘naughty’ or ‘nice’ cards - were played before the light went.

The event saw some very close scoring thanks to the pairings but an eventual final was held between Craig Blackwell and Karen Murphy and Bob Borland and Jimmy Cope.

Blackwell and Murphy emerged victorious after some good rallies and lots of crowd support – possibly aided by the mulled wine and refreshments organised by Margaret Bradbury with donations from individual players.

John Christian and Sarah Kelly received special prizes for best fancy dress.

Thanks were given to Neil for organising all the Castletown tournaments this year.

Club chairman Will Watterson summed up the afternoon by saying that it was great to see so many people playing tennis in December thanks to the new court surface and that it was extremely positive to go into the club’s 150 anniversary year on such a strong footing.

He thanked everyone for taking part and making it such a fun afternoon.

JENNY FOY