The Feltmakers were delighted to host the 2016 Inter Livery Tennis Tournament on 7th September at Queen’s Club. With a close, overcast morning, the forecast of clear skies in the afternoon from the Met Office proved accurate and the competition was played in unseasonably baking temperatures. The Feltmakers fielded three teams this year, represented by Bruce Fraser and Tori Kershaw, Gilly and Alan Yarrow and Jeremy Bedford and Hilary Russell.
We were again at full capacity with 24 teams playing on Queen’s Club’s six shale courts. A competitive ’round robin’ of four teams per court playing the best of 9 games determined the 8 teams who proceeded to the Quarter Finals of the Championship with the remaining 16 teams fighting out what proved to be a tremendously competitive Plate Tournament. There was a high standard of play on all courts with some very closely fought matches.
Plate Finalists: Grocers Stephen Goodhart and Clare Graffy,and Mercers Kate Evers and Chris Watney.
The Plate Competition included some exciting matches between pairings who were unlucky not to have progressed to the Championship Competition, with a final between the Grocers, represented by brother and sister Clare Graffy and Stephen Goodhart, and the Mercers, represented by Chris Watney and Kate Evers, which was won after a hard fought and entertaining match by the Mercers.
Championship Finalists: Tallow Chandlers Chris Kurkijan and Zoe Taylor and Salters Ellie Hill and Tom Wordie.
In the Championship Competition, the seedings proved to have been expertly calculated by our Feltmaker tournament referee, Bruce Fraser, with a very strong Salters pairing of Tom Wordie and Ellie Hill, last year’s Plate winners, and the Tallow Chandlers’, the 2015 Champions who this year were represented by Chris Kurkijan and new partner Zoe Taylor. In a very closely fought final, the Salters broke the multi year winning streak of the Tallow Chandlers and the engravers stencil
We look forward to welcoming the Livery Companies back to Queen’s Club next year and to fielding some strong Feltmaker teams again. Thanks must go to the Feltmakers’ Bruce Fraser for masterminding the tournament.
Jeremy Bedford
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