Redlands Lawn Tennis Association Club Championships 2008

The RLTA conducted its annual club championships over the three evenings of 23, 24 and 25 September.  A total of 46 entries were received for the singles, doubles and mixed doubles events.  Each of the events was completed on a separate night. Players were seeded into two pools and played in a round-robin format.  The winners of each pool then played a final.

In the open singles competition, club coach Jani Kroyherr dominated his pool to advance to the final, but the second pool saw a much closer affair with Steve Parr advancing narrowly over the up and coming champion-in-waiting Justin Schneider.  Justin, who has been the runner-up in this event in each of the past two years, bolted from the blocks, overwhelming the club president with his power game, and looking set to make 2008 his year.  But as the evening wore on and the intense tennis gradually took its toll, Justin again faded, allowing the older, more experienced Steve Parr to advance to the final.  In contrast to the drama of the pool matches, the final was more of a one-sided affair with Jani defeating Steve by six games to one, giving Jani the title of Club Champion for the second year in a row.

Finalists Steve Parr & Jani Kroyherr

The final of the second division singles between Ben Collins and Peter Cox was a very even contest, with the result decided by the narrowest of margins in a tiebreaker.  After an early break, Ben lead four games to two but could not stop his more determined opponent from coming back to tie the match at five games all.  The closely contested tie-break saw Peter maintain the momentum to snatch the final seven points to five.

Second Division finalists Ben Collins & Peter Cox

In the open doubles event, Steve Parr teamed with Justin Schneider to extract some revenge by beating the coach-president combination of Jani Kroyherr and Ian Somers in a closely fought match, which was also decided by a tiebreak.

The scratch pairing of Mark Wakeling and Carl Sabatini turned out to be a winning combination, beating the older, more experienced combination of Alec Muga and Paul Smith six games to four in the final of the second division doubles.  While Mark and Carl were comfortable winners of their pool, only three games separated the top three pairs in Alec and Paul’s pool, an indication of the closeness of the contest.

With an unexplained scarcity of first division women players, the mixed doubles was reduced to a single event.  However, this did not dampen the enthusiasm of the eighteen participants in the competition, which was still played in a great atmosphere.  The event even provided the opportunity for two father-daughter teams to contest the event (Steve & Jaimi Parr and Ian & Bonnie Somers).  In keeping with the theme of the night, the final actually turned out to be somewhat of a family affair, with Wasiela Weary and Ben Parr beating Ben’s father and sister (Steve & Jaimi) six games to three.