Members Choice Award
This prestigious award will honour the most inspiring people within the Real Tennis and Rackets community, as chosen by T&RA members.
The Annual T&RA Dinner and Awards Ceremony hands out a variety of awards that recognise outstanding professionals and amateurs in both games. Some of the categories include the Maltby (volunteer of the year), the Warburg and Latham (best performance by pros), the Baerlein and Negretti (best performance by amateurs), and the Henry John (best young professional). The recipients of the T&RA Awards are chosen by our Board and Games Committees, which have deep knowledge of the Real Tennis and Rackets community.
The Members’ Choice Award will honour inspiring individuals involved in the Real Tennis or Rackets world. Whether a player, a professional, a volunteer or otherwise, they will have contributed to our games in a noteworthy way over the past season, as decided by our members via a poll sent by email.
We were overwhelmed by the number of nominations for the Members’ Choice Award. We will therefore be posting some of the lovely comments people said about so many Real Tennis and Rackets players, professionals and supporters of the game each week on our website and social media channels. We will kick off this week with the Real Tennis superstar who received the most nominations and the Rackets professional who also received a considerable number of votes.
Maggie Henderson-Tew
We thought this nomination given by one of the members summed up very nicely what the majority of the other nominations were saying:
"Maggie is the Radley Club Captain. Her 2023 spring newsletter is 28 pages and this sums up just what she does for Radley and the wider Real Tennis community. Without Maggie the club would not be what it is today - thriving. She leads, organises, fundraises, cajoles, washes, cooks and plays every day of the week with huge enthusiasm and energy - you never see a down Maggie.
She takes an interest in every single club member's welfare and is a huge supporter of the professional team.
Her wider Real Tennis interests are global, finding opportunities for new courts to be built and encouraging and supporting these to fruition. Her Real Tennis network is second to none and anyone walking through the door is given the best of welcomes.
She is just the best Captain that we, at Radley, could wish for - we, and the wider Tennis community, are very fortunate to have her."
Thank you Maggie for all of the work that you continue to do for our beloved game!
Mark Briers
This second nomination highlights Mark's continued enthusiasm to grow the game of rackets and especially the ladies' game
"Over the past 30 years Mark has shown total dedication to the rackets community. His unique and transparent coaching methods have generated significant success for the men's and women's game and he has fostered a wonderful community that continues to thrive and be enthusiastic about the game all over the world. Mark is a total hero in the rackets scene and deserves some recognition amongst the community."
Thank you Mark we commend your dedication to Rackets, in particular, girls rackets and the continuation of participation of players both boys and girls post school.