News

Bromley LTC suffer first defeat in two years

10th May 2011

Last Sunday saw Bromley Lawn Tennis Club travel to Ipswich Sports Club for the 3rd round of the AEGON Team Tennis Championships. With a record 24 match unbeaten run in the competition and their strength within the Bromley squad, a win for the current National Champions against the newly promoted Ipswich SC should have been almost a formality.

Unfortunately many of Bromley’s top players were injured or competing elsewhere in the UK and around the world and could not get back for this match. This left Bromley having to field a much, much weaker side.

Playing at number one in the line up was Bromley’s Head Coach and Britain’s former number 3 Andrew Richardson. Despite being the under dog on paper these days, Richardson showed just why he reached 133 in the world and despatched Ipswich’s Jeremy Cowley 7-5, 6-1 in the singles.

Oliver Freelove, a former GB Top Ten player, was at number two for Bromley and despite serving for the first set eventually lost 7-6, 6-1 to Matt Kirby.

Rob Carter, who is ranked in the top 100 junior players in the world, actually served to win his singles match but ultimately lost in 3 sets to Myles Orton 6-1, 6-7, 7-5.

Playing at number four for Bromley was Mike Tuson, a former club singles champion. Although he had been called in to help the team out, Mike put up a valiant effort against the much higher ranked opponent from Ipswich but lost to Matt Hough 6-1, 6-2.

Bromley went into the two doubles rubbers 3-1 down in matches with no way to recover the tie. Carter and Richardson then paired up and lost to Cowley & Hough 7-6, 6-3 and Tuson & Freelove went down 6-4, 7-6 to Orton and Kirby. Bromley lose overall 5 rubbers to 1.

Speaking afterwards Oliver Freelove, Bromley’s Team Manager said “Whilst we are disappointed to break our winning streak, this is an incredibly busy time in the tennis calendar and it was just unfortunate that our big guns couldn’t make this match. A loss today doesn’t mean that we are out of the competition by any means. With four group matches still to play we are optimistic that we will qualify for the finals in Bournemouth and go on to achieve a hat trick of successive AEGON National Championship Titles”.

In the South East division of this national competition, currently six out of the eight teams featured in the league are tied on the number of points achieved so far, with only the set and games percentages separating them. Bromley are currently third in the league and will compete against four of their rivals over the next five weeks. Still everything to play for.

Back to News | Fun American Tournament - Monday 30th May | Bromley LTC AEGON Team Back To Winning Ways

 
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