For the first time BWS went to the Senior Tennis National Finals held at Bolton. This competition is for players as of September rated 7.1 or less. 136 schools entered and the boys had to top their group and win numerous knock out matches to get to this stage, already the task had been fairly sizable. Now they faced a quarter final group consisting of two public schools in Culford and Nottingham and one other state school in the form of Canon Slade. Only the top placed school would have the opportunity to face the winner of the other group in the final, possible opponents being Strathallen, Peter Symonds, Rugby and Dr Challenors.

Day one started against Canon Slade and couldn’t have gone much worse as we proceeded to lose both doubles rubbers and our first singles, but then the boys rallied and got in the swing. Having travelled 6 hours and in the finals for the first time perhaps an element of fatigue mixed with expectation led to the early defeats, but once in their stride this team can take anyone on. So from 0-3 down we proceeded to claw back the match, 1-3, 2-3, 3-3 a huge come back, and then for the tie break, first to ten. After defeating his opposite number Barry was in the tie break with Rident playing a broken team, they went on to win 9-1 to take the match 4-3. This result showed huge resolve and character from the team and set us on the way in our group.

Next were Culford, a school rich in tennis tradition and a tennis centre to trump our lack of any tennis courts at all. They had defeated Nottingham with ease and we were determined not to suffer the same fate, despite taking the court only moments after our first match which had last 5 hours. Unfortunately we were unable to take a rubber from Culford despite some battling tennis. This left us with one win and one loss, the same as Canon Slade. While Culford topped the group and Nottingham propped up the bottom. Our final match against Nottingham was a must win to finish runners up in our group, top 4 nationally and the number 1 state school in the competition, no pressure!

The doubles went to plan with both rubbers being won taking us to an instant 2-0 lead. We then lost our first singles to make it 2-1, before we rolled out the big guns in Rident, Benson and Barry who have been a part of the tennis in school of four years. They did not disappoint and won each of their singles rubbers to ensure victory for BWS and that runner up spot. It has been a long journey with 7 months’ worth of fixtures playing in two country’s over 9 matches to finish in the top 4 of 136 schools. The boys Jamie Barry, James Benson, Matthieu Rident and Will Miles did the school proud and themselves proud, well done boys. Onwards and upwards!

A special mention to Mr Lloyd who drove us to Bolton and stepped in when I had to depart on Saturday. In the boys words, an absolute warrior!

RDG