Home Page Haverhill News

Haverhill Tennis Club’s young juniors have been playing in the Suffolk Junior Leagues over the winter.

The 14U team of Sam Howard, Sam McDonald and Joshua Smith have been playing in the SJL with matches at Wortham, Newmarket, Red Lodge and Culford.

The team didn’t lose any of those matches and qualified for the finals against A&M Tennis from Coddenham who had won the other league.

In the final, both boys (Sam Howard and Sam McDonald) got off to a slow start with both of them 3-0 down after 15 minutes.

The boys soon rallied with Sam McDonald winning the first set 6–4 and taking the second set 6-2. Sam Howard lost his match narrowly 6-3, 7-6 so the final all depended on the doubles which the Haverhill boys won quite convincingly 6-4, 6-2.

They received medals, a trophy, plaque and a cheque for the tennis club. A great, but very late match which started at 7pm and finished just after 10pm – well done boys.

Haverhill held its penultimate competition of the winter series on Saturday, March 2, with the 14U boys in action again.

Strangely enough, three of the boys who had taken part in the Suffolk Final took part in Saturday’s competition - Rhodri Durie, Sam Howard and Sam McDonald.

Durie from A&M tennis club had travelled down to take part in the event and played a solid match against Greg Birch and then Sam Jones to move into the semi-finals against Sam Howard, who he had beaten the week before.

This time, though, it was Howard who won after playing a brilliant match, 4-0, 4-2. In the top end of the draw Sam McDonald beat Gokhan Salman 4-1, 4-0 and then had to compete against the number one seed Alfie Kennard.

Alfie proved to be too strong for Sam on the day winning 4-2, 4-0. The final between Alfie and Sam Howard on, now, a freezing cold evening had some brilliant games, with both boys struggling to hold their serves early on in the match.

Howard finally held his serve and won 5-3 in a very tight first set. The second set was far more comfortable for Howard, winning it 4-1, rounding off an excellent week for the Haverhill player.

Twelve boys took part in the event and the attitude of the youngsters was brilliant. Some of the lads like Gokhan Salman, Freddie Holmes, Jayden Bayford, Joshua Smith and Sam Jones were either playing in their first event or were a lot younger than most of the other players.

If you would like to play tennis at Haverhill then please look on the website www.haverhilltennisclub.co.uk for further information.