Prested Hall Real Tennis Club: National League 2010 - Division 4 Winners

Report published in The Witham and Braintree Times

PRESTED 1 CLAIM NATIONAL TITLE

Five of Prested Hall Real Tennis Club's National League teams reached their Divisions’ preliminary finals. Prested 1 (head pro Matt Potter, Mark Nicholls and his son, Will Nicholls) went on to beat Cambridge University 3, by 2 matches to 1, to take the Division 4 title, and Prested 5 (Jon Conway, Mike Norgrove and Chris Vigrass) won Division 9 by defeating Middlesex University 4, also 2-1.

Prested 1, playing away, were the underdogs, having lost 3-0 to Cambridge 3 earlier in the season. From being 4-1 down in the first set, Will Nicholls raced to a 6-4, 3-1 lead, only to be pegged back by Edward Pearson, who took the second set 6-3 and edged him out 6-4 in the third. Mark Nicholls outclassed Clive Bowsher 6-0, 6-2 to level. An unusually nervous Potter faltered at the start of the decider against James Watson, but recovered to win 5-6, 6-4, 6-2.

In the Division 9 final, lasting almost 5 hours, Conway, unfamiliar with Middlesex’s court, lost the first set to James Barlow 6-2, but pulled back to win the next two 6-3, 6-3. Norgrove took a 6-4 lead against James La Terriere, only to lose the second set by the same margin, and had to go all out at 2-all in the third to win 6-2. With the title in the bag, Vigrass failed to find his form and was beaten 6-3 6-3 by Mark Heffernan.