Hamilton Tennis Club: Douglas crowned men’s singles champion

Boylan opened with a very impressive first service game, but Douglas levelled with his own convincing service game.

Both men held serve fairly comfortably until the vital seventh game when Douglas pressed home his advantage with some penetrating slices to his opponent’s backhand to take a 4-3 lead.

The next two games saw Boylan put up a stout defence, while Douglas made some uncharacteristic errors before eventually taking the set 6-4.

The pendulum swung further in his favour in the second set as Douglas reduced his error rate, serving consecutive aces to clinch the title 6-0 as Boylan’s sturdy defence took a physical toll.

* Heavy rain and half-term saw few league matches scheduled, but there was an excellent 6-2 win over Carisbrooke D by the ladies’ fourth team of Pat Woolston and Maggie Saunders, and Nikki Newman with Linda Hallam.

Both pairs won three sets and narrowly lost a fourth to Carisbrooke’s first pair.

Hamilton’s ladies’ third team of Lesley Greaves/Rosie Gildove and Cindy Coulter/Jan Jackson might have wished for a postponement as they lost 7-1 to Loughborough.

Lesley and Rosie took the consolation set.

But there were no consolation sets when the ladies’ second team of Polly Dolby/Margaret Shufflebotham and Dee Hughes/Jude Plumb lost 8-0 to a strong Melton team.