* Ladies Amateur Singles and Doubles 2025

Singles

This year we had a larger draw for the singles, with many of the top players in the game taking part. The first rounds saw lots of competitive play, with particularly strong performances from both Laura Neill and Honor Cockroft in their respective matches. Cesca Sweet, Tara Lumley, Eve Shenkman, and India Deakin progressed to the semi-finals. The first semi-final between Eve Shenkman and India Deakin was very close, with very little serve dominance and lots of long rallies. In the latter stages of the game, the serve became more dominant with India Deakin winning 15/11 15/8 to proceed to the final. The second semi-final between Tara Lumley and Cesca Sweet was a hard-hitting battle, with both ladies serving impeccably. In the second game, Cesca hit a purple patch with serving, making it difficult for Tara to get a foothold in the game. The final was a contest between Cesca and India. The first half of the game was very close with India hitting lots of great angles and forcing errors from Cesca, but in the end, the serve proved too dominant with Cesca dominating convincingly in the second game to win 2-0.

Doubles

The Amateur Doubles was contested by 4 pairs, with a box to begin with, with the top two pairs going through to the final. Alongside seasoned players like Tara Lumley and Cesca Sweet, it was great to see newer ladies competing such as Anastasia and Roselle, with this being Roselle's maiden tournament. It was also encouraging to see schoolgirl participation, with Wellington's Georgia Toosey taking part. The box games were all competitive, and the closest match of the group was between Tara/Honor and Eve/Laura, with this going to a deciding third game. Georgia/Cesca won all of their group matches going into the final as favourites, with Tara/Honor the runners-up in the group and also proceeding to the final. On Sunday, Tara/Honor faced Georgia/Cesca again, but this time with new tactics, with the pair changing receiving sides. The first game of the final was arguably the best. with Tara/Honor leading 11-3, and then a comeback from Georgia/Cesca to 13-13. Set to 3 was called, and the second hand Cesca served through to take the game for the pair. The following two games were close, with plenty of great kills and lengths hit by Tara in particular, though the serve did prove more dominant, with Georgia and Cesca coming through to win 3-0 in the end.

Eve Shenkman