Club News

Spring American Tournament

Our traditional season opener, the Spring American tournament, took place on Sunday 26th April. We had another good turnout, accommodating extra players again thanks to Peter’s ever flexible match organisation. Entrants enjoyed an excellent mornings’ tennis, which saw some close scores in the Men’s and the Ladies contests, and a clear winner in each overall.

Congratulations to our two winners, Grainne Nichorbaidh in the Ladies and Stephen Wade in the Men’s. Our thanks once again to Jane Wells for organising the event and Peter Sargent for arranging the schedule of matches.

Summer American Tournament

Our next American tournament is the summer event, scheduled for Sunday 28th June, so look out for the invitation if you would like to try your luck. These are very sociable events, with a mixed standard of play and entrants are paired in a random draw to keep matches as even as possible.

Quiz Night

Meanwhile, why not get a team of your friends and family together and take part in the next club social event. This is a Quiz Night on Saturday 16th May at St John’s Church, Knoll Rise in Orpington, and includes prizes for the winners (see the flyer below for details). Bring your own drinks, glasses and snacks along (no spirits allowed) and there will also be a raffle on the evening.

Coaching

As you may recall from previous updates, we now have access to a professional coach who has offered to run both group coaching sessions and 1to1 coaching for club members. His name is Josh Brown and he is a fully qualified Level 4 LTA coach. If you are interested in improving your game, you can contact Josh direct to arrange a session - contact details available from Jan or David.

Meanwhile, the first programme of group sessions is currently underway and there will be evening coaching taking place on the 7th, 14th and 21st May. If you are interested in joining in, please let Jan know in the first instance. And we are hoping to run a further series of coaching sessions in late June and July.

Court Re-surfacing

Our court re-surfacing suppliers, ETC Sports, returned to the courts on 27th April and completed the cosmetic repairs we agreed. They used a process of heat treatments to make a series of successful repairs to the cosmetic cracks using hot-lay tarmac. They also undertook a cosmetic repair to the net post on court 3, although we realise we may have to replace this at some time in the future.

Note that our suppliers advised we should be lowering the nets even further than we have been doing after play. If the nets are not lowered sufficiently, they apply too much tension to the net posts, which can contribute to the damage we sometimes see in the court surfaces around the posts. Please lower the nets to half the normal height when you leave the courts.

Club Tournaments

The draw for this years' Club Tournaments took place on Saturday 25th April and the match ties and schedule are now up in the Clubhouse. We have been asked to play our first round matches by the end of May, so get in touch with your partners and opponents, either directly or through the FTC Tournament 2026 WhatsApp group, and get those matches in the diary.

A summary of the Tournament rules have been shared on the WhatsApp group and the full Tournament rules for match play can be found on the Matches page on the website.

Please email your results to the Tournament Organiser, Sue Leonard at susanleonard@sky.com

Club Matches

We have arranged 8 friendly matches so far, with the possibility of a few more to follow. We need four players per team for each of the matches so, if you are interested in getting involved, please contact Kuniko Sato for the Ladies Doubles and Brian Keegan for the Men’s Doubles and Mixed Doubles.

Our next fixtures are in June, so there is plenty of time to get involved.

Further contact details are available on the Matches page of the website, together with an up to date fixture list, with dates and venues.

American Tournaments

Dates for the American Tournaments are as follows and details for each will be sent out prior to the event.

Summer American - 28th June
Autumn American - 20th September
Mince Pie American - to be decided