by Ben Taylor-Matthews
A full draw of 16 players descended on Westwood Country Club for this years Hickey Cup.
Players were from Westwood, Boston, Newport, Chicago, Philadelphia and Aiken so it was nice to see a good representation from across the country, with many players getting to play the court for the first time.
The seeds made it through the first round comfortably, but we did have two really close matches. Randy Barr (RCOP) edged past Jeff Norton (WW) 10-9 and Todd Norris (WW) just got the better of Kate Villiers (ATC) 10-8.
We had a strange draw in that whilst the matches were all very close, they were all straight set results, with some of the scorelines looking quite harsh for what was in fact, a close match.
Chris O’Brien (NTC) had used his railroad to great effect throughout the tournament, dominating from the service end and getting through to the final. On the other side, Brian Cunningham (WW) had made it through by chasing down virtually every ball and proving very difficult to get chases against.
In the final, Brian as able to deal with Chris’ railroad very well, not only getting them all back, but finding good length on the return. There were plenty of rallies, but Brian was able to pin Chris down on his return. He won the final 6/1 6/3 and congratulations to both players on a great weekend of tennis.
The back draw was won by Kate Villiers (ATC) who (after surviving a match point in her first back draw match) comfortably won the rest of her matches, beating Jim McDonald (RCC) in the final 10-2.
The semi finals and final of both the main and back draws were very well attended, with a superbly vocal dedans!
