U13 National Tennis Champions - for the third time!

The Reed’s U13 tennis team travelled to Bolton to play in the schools national finals, a competition which started back in April with over 600 teams. We had to win ten matches to qualify for this stage. 

The finals weekend couldn’t have possibly been any more dramatic! In the first match against Merchiston Castle there were losses for Frank Johnston and Will Jansen in the singles, but both Sam Reeve and Melchior Delloye came back strongly to bring it to 2-2. After some high quality tennis the doubles were split, so the match went to a sudden death shootout. The drama was intense as the boys went match point down at 9-8, but some fantastic tennis from Sam and Melchior saw them through 11-9 to win the match. 

The second match on Saturday was a much simpler affair, beating Warwick 6-0 to set up a Sunday final v Millfield. 

The final was incredibly exciting throughout. Xavier Mohindra lost at number 4 singles, but then there were excellent singles wins for Sam, Will and Melchior, giving a 3-1 lead. Both doubles went against them to make the match 3-3 and another shootout awaited. Sam and Melchior again stepped up for Reed’s and the tie break was very close, both teams always staying within a point of each other. Finding themselves 9-8 match point down, amazingly, the miracle happened again and they pulled off a 13-11 win! 

We are very, very proud of the boys, especially as this is now the 7th time we have won the Under 13 Nationals. We are now looking forward to the tennis season which kicks off in April 2018!

Adrian Blackman, Head of Tennis