Callender Cup 2025

The 2025 Callender Cup brought together a strong field of handicap doubles pairs from clubs across the country. Last year’s champions, Anisha Charania & Tim Ault (Oxford), returned to defend their title, while challengers from Holyport, Hatfield, Cambridge, Radley, Petworth, Wellington, Moreton Morrell, Leamington, and others ensured a weekend of high-quality, tightly matched play.

Saturday morning started with a highly competitive group, with Holyport juniors Charles Bartlett & Lawrence Gee emerging dominant, securing three convincing wins to top the group and Mary Strevens & Alex Solovyev (Oxford) took second place, progressing to the knockout rounds.

Then defending champions Anisha Charania & Tim Ault showed excellent form, recording a clean sweep of their matches in group 2, and Martin Richards & Steve Brewerton (Hatfield) edged it in a tight battle for second place.

Group 3 was a three-pair group and saw strong momentum from Ian Glasscock & Simon Godsill (Cambridge) who won both matches and advanced as group winners and Jane Taylor & Dominic Higham (Petworth) progressed as the runners-up.

We completed the group stage on Sunday morning and after a closely fought group where all 3 pairs beat each other it was Mark Harris & Nigel Hall (Wellington) and Mark Leefe & James Richardson (Moreton Morrell) both finished with strong performances and advanced.

The knock-out stages then kicked off with the Holyport youngsters Charles & Lawrence continuing their strong run, defeating Jane Taylor & Dominic Higham, while the holders Anisha & Tim kept their defence going and overcame Mark Leefe & James Richardson in a tight match.
Ian & Simon from Cambridge then produced a dominant win over Martin Richards & Steve Brewerton, and the home Wellington pair Mark Harris & Nigel Hall defeated Mary Strevens & Alex Solovyev to complete the semifinal lineup.

In the first semi-final Anisha & Tim (Oxford) took a 5/1 lead over the young Holyport pair, but their title defence was over when Charles & Lawrence got to grips with their game and came back to win 8/5. The second semi-final was another cracking match, with Mark & Nigel (Wellington) dealing well with the handicap against Simon & Ian (Cambridge) and the match went game for game, but it was Simon & Ian who manage to edge over the line 8/6 to book their final spot against Holyport.

In the final Charles & Lawrence raced off to a 6/0 lead, but Simon and Ian didn’t panic and started to up the pace of their shots which started to work well but despite the spirted come back it was Holyport who took the title with a 8/5 victory!