The IRTPA Championships

Final’s Today

What a great event this has been so far.  The member’s of Manchester have been just so hospitable and generous not only to the IRTPA but to those competing too.

The tennis court has been completely refurbished, painted, new lights (just spectacular) and any defects which were there have been rectified.

Three tournaments occur during the week,  The Taylor Cup which is for new professionals in the game.  This year we are going to have a very closely contested final with Paul Knox, who is Chris Ronaldson’s trainee at Radley playing Chris Chapman from The Royal Melbourne Tennis Club.  It will be the first time in a number of years that players of equal standard have contested the event.

In the Satellite Final it is the ‘dream ticket’ for Manchester!  Rod McNaughtan who trained there against the current Assistant Professional Craig Greenhalgh.  The crowd will not know which way to support!  The Satellite Tournament is a tournament in its own right, played out to the final, but it is also a qualifier for the IRTPA Championship, with the 8 quarter finalists going into the main draw.

The Championships itself has gone according to seeding, except for the up-set of Ruaraidh Gunn being defeated in the semi-finals by Ben Matthews.  Ruaraidh, is based in Melbourne and does not have many tournaments there in which to hone his tournament skills, while players in the northern hemisphere have many more to play in.  Ben Matthews in the last year has developed as a player and will very soon have a world ranking.  Ben is one of quite a few ‘new generation’ players who will very soon be consistently making their mark in tournaments.

The Championship Final tonight is between Rob Fahey and Ben Matthews.  One would expect the world champion to win the event, but anything could happen.  In the British Open quarter finals they played each other and the score was 6/0 6/2 6/4.

During the week social events almost took over from the tournaments.  On the Wednesday evening there was a cocktail party and a tennis exhibition between Bryn Sayers and Ben Matthews.  Like all good exhibitions they somehow managed to make it a very close run thing with Bryn winning 9/8!  On the Saturday evening there was a dinner for the members and professionals where members were bidding to play in the Pro Am event on the Sunday.  By all accounts not only was the dinner and company excellent but the Pro Am a huge success.

The Championship tournament is also very important as it closes the race for those who will be eligible to play in the eliminators for the right to play Rob Fahey for his World Championship title in May 2010.  The race has been the closest for some while and a few surprises are in store for those who follow this closely!