2006 News Archive

December: Review of 2006
Jo Gray writes... This brings to an end my first year of being Junior Secretary and I would like to thank the coaches (particularly Neil Walker), parents and children for their support and hard work during the year.

Chelmsford League - throughout the summer we have had both boys and girls teams representing the club in most age groups. We were runners up in the Girls U12 and U14 . We made it to the finals of the U10, Boys U14 and Boys U16 that were played on Sunday 19 November at David Lloyd Basildon all finishing as winners of their respective leagues. Sadly the Boys U12 missed out in the play-offs having won their division.


CJTA Under 10 winners	*CJTA Boys under 14 winners*	*CJTA Boys under 16 winners*

Chelmsford Individual Competition - Billy Elliot won the Boys U13 competition beating M Eatherton from Billericay 7-5 6-3 and Adele Sammons and Emily Defroand won the Girls U14 Doubles title 6-2 6-0.

National Club League - the Girls U12 team were Essex runners up to Redbridge. The team consisted of Eva Dench, Emily Defroand and Sian Green.

Mini Tennis - it has been a busy and successful year for mini tennis at Cranston Park. Our Red and Orange Teams both reached the Essex Mini Tennis Championships Finals Day. Both teams finished as runners up. The teams consisted of:

Red - Georgia Avers, Amelia Acreman, William Woodard and Toby Harvey.
Orange – Olivia Sofroniou, Jasmine Walker, George Gray and James Broadbent.

George Gray was winner of the Essex Mini Tour Green Championships and Olivia Sofroniou was winner of the Essex Mini Tour Orange Championships both held at Redbridge. George and Olivia also represented Essex in green and orange matches respectively.

Other News - Dylan Walker and Emily Defroand were both accepted into the National Championships qualifying U12 event held at Queenswood. Both were knocked out by seeded players. Sian Green represented Essex in a victorious U10 Lionel Cox team. Eva Dench was U12 Runner Up at the Essex Championships held at Thorpe Bay.

Well done to all players who played in tournaments this year. We had many other winners and runners up.

Coaching - Cranston Park LTC is now a County Accredited Performance Club. This means that funding is received for training of the clubs top young juniors. Sadly, Neil Twitchett left the club at the end of October. The club would like to thank him for his hard work with the many juniors he has coached during his years with us. He has taken up a post in Cambridge and we wish him every success in the future.

Essex Eagles - Green

November 2006

November: Eva's summer tour
Dave Dench writes... Eva played in six tournaments throughout the summer holidays. She reached 3 finals, 1 semi-final and 2 quarter-finals in under 12's, and 2 quarter-finals in under 14's. She won an under 15 mixed title at Frinton and the under 14 doubles at Woking, with partners from different clubs. Eva finished her tour of duty by losing in the under 12's final at Thorpe Bay, after beating two girls with higher ratings than her in the quarter and semi-final. All in all a very good six week spell, rising to top 60 in the country and improving her rating along the way. She has enjoyed every minute of it, and is now looking forward to playing indoors through-out the winter having rounded off the summer by finishing 5th in the JCT Masters at Queenswood Tennis Centre, winning 3 out of 4 matches.

P.S. Since writing this report Eva has been on the road playing Ariel Indoor series, and County tournaments. However, being in under 14's now Eva has found it tough, all a learning experience though. Her latest trip was to Manchester where she won the first match but lost the next two!

Sunday 15th October: Chelmsford Junior Tennis Association - Plate Finals
Mark Gray writes... Firstly, as a CJTA committee member I'd like to extend our thanks to the club for hosting the CJTA Plate Finals competition this year. Now with my Cranston Park publicity hat on I'd like to report that although it was a rather chilly day there was again some excellent junior tennis on display. Furthermore, Cranston Park had a winner! Congratulations to Emily Defroand on taking the Girls Under 13 title beating L Mountford from Clearview 6-1 6-4. Well done!

Sunday 8th October 2006: ECLTA Summer 2006 Grand Finals

Three CPLTC juniors made it to the ECLTA Summer 2006 Grand Finals at Redbridge Sports & Leisure today. Jess Walker and Pippa Wilson took part in a strong Girls U12 finals. Jess made it through the group stage to the semi-finals just missing out to a place in the final. Billy Bilton, taking part in the Boys U10 final, came through his group as runner-up after the group finished with a three way tie. Battling hard Billy lost out to Toby Gibbons in the semi-final.

Sunday 8th October: ECLTA Mini Tennis Summer 2006 Tour Grand Finals

CPLTC juniors Olivia Sofrionou and George Gray rounded off successful summer mini tours with respective victories in the Orange and Green Mini Tour Finals held at Redbridge Sports & Leisure sponsored by The Essex Tennis Parents Association. After winning her group Olivia came from behind in the final to secure a well deserved victory. George won his group without dropping a game going through to face James Caddies from Clearview in the final. Continuing his winning streak George took the final 4-0. Also taking part with George were Nick Wade and Rohan Mayor.

Saturday 24th September 2006: Romford & District Junior Finals Day

Yet another dry and sunny finals day at Cranston Park with many of our juniors taking part in finals during the morning.
See all their results below.

Boys Under 16 Singles:
Jordan Jones (Cranston Park) beat Alfie Sears (Cranston Park) 6-4 0-6 6-1
Boys Under 14 Singles:
Marcus Eatherton (Billericay) beat Jordan Jones (Cranston Park) 6-3 6-0
Girls Under 14 Singles:
Winner - Adele Sammons (Cranston Park) beat Emily Defroand (Cranston Park)
Girls Under 12 Singles:
Prudence Jones (Billericay) beat Emily Defroand (Cranston Park) 6-4 6-3
Boys Under 10 Singles:
Billy Bilton (Cranston Park) beat George Gray (Cranston Park) 4-6 6-4 7-5
Boys Under 16 Doubles:
Winners - Jordan Jones & Tom Wilson (Cranston Park) beat Duncan Bloomer & Oliver McKie (Great Baddow)
Boys Under 13 Doubles:
Marcus Eatherton (Billericay) & David Wright (Cranbrook Castle) beat James Davis & Billy Elliott (Cranston Park) 7-6 3-6 6-4
Girls Under 13 Doubles:
Emily Defroand & Adele Sammons (Cranston Park) beat Eva Dench & Sian Green (Cranston Park) 6-7 7-5 6-4

Sunday 10 Sept 2006: Chelmsford Junior Tennis Association Individual Competition Finals held at Brentwood Hard
Congratulations to Billy Elliot who won the Boys U13 competition beating M Eatherton from Billericay 7-5 6-3 in the final and Adele Sammons and Emily Defroand taking the Girls U14 Doubles title 6-2 6-0.

2 July 2006: Chelmsford Junior League U12 Cranston Park vs Brentwood Lawn

25 June 2006: ECLTA Mini Tennis Accredited Club Finals ORANGE
The time, 1:00pm Sunday afternoon. The Place, Redbridge Sports and Leisure. The team, Cranston Park Orange (G. Gray, O. Sofroniou, J. Broadbent, J. Walker).

Winners of the Williams Group, Cranston Park reached the finals of the ECLTA Mini Tennis Accredited Club Finals joined by Clearview, Williams group runners-up. The competition format: four singles matches with a mixed doubles match to finish (the deciding match should the singles be drawn 2-2).

Our first match was against Thorpe Bay which we comfortably won 4-1. In the next round came Cranbrook Castle who we beat 4-1. So far so good. With the 4:00pm kick-off of Ecuador vs England in the World Cup fast approaching a tense set of parents took their places to watch a final between Cranston Park and Clearview. With the singles drawn 2-2 it was left to the mixed doubles to decide the contest. Following their game strategy to the letter the Clearview pair stopped us in our tracks with George and Olivia losing 11-8. Never mind guys, second place winners is a great achievement and the whole event was great fun - well done! Oh, and by the way England won too 1-0.

18 June 2006: Chelmsford Junior League U12 Hockley vs Cranston Park
A hot sunny afternoon and on our way to Southend with the U12's (D. Walker, S. Green, B. Bilton, A. Gray) venue, Garrons Tennis Academy, our opponents, Hockley. Some advice for anyone making the same journey on a hot sunny summers afternoon - "leave plenty of time to get there". There was some great tennis today. Sian and Dylan made a great start taking the lead in the first set 4-1 only to find Hockley in the mood for a match. Fighting back and reaching a first set tie break the Hockley first pair only just lost out in a nail biting finish to the set. From there on it was all Cranston Park with Billy and Adam helping to secure a 1-7 win. By the way, not so nail biting, and not in Southend, was Lleyton Hewitt winning his fourth Stella Artois title today at The Queen's Club beating James Blake 6-4 6-4.

17 June 2006: Chelmsford Junior League U10 Gidea Park vs Cranston Park
Another perfect afternoon for tennis with our U10 team having high hopes for maintaining their 100% winning record (S. Green, G. Gray, B. Bilton, D. Whitbread). While in London Tim Henman was trying to maintain his 100% record... but failed losing to Lleyton Hewitt in the semi-finals of the Stella Artois Championship at The Queen's Club 6-3 3-6 6-2. On the football pitch Portugal were seeing off Iran in the World Cup although, it has to be said making a bit of meal of it.

The half time score as we arrived at Gidea Park was 0-0 but thanks to information from Neil Walker - playing in the Men's First Team match against Gidea Park - we were kept up to date with the final score, 2-0 to Portugal with Cristiano Ronaldo scoring a penalty. All very important news if your in the CPLTC Fantasy World Cup League. Anyway, back to the tennis; it was Gidea Park U10's first match in the league this year and although playing very well they were not able to stop our U10 team winning 4-0 - well played everybody, some great tennis. Oh, and the Men's First Team won as well beating Gidea Park in a close fought match.

12 June 2006: Chelmsford Junior League U10 Cranston Park vs Havering
Phew what a scorcher! On a day where the temperature reached 32.4C in Central London the Cranston Park U10 team were in action again today this time at home to Havering (D. Whitbread, L. Taylor, B. Bilton, G. Gray). A 5:00pm start at a busy Cranston Park with Men's 2 and Ladies Vets 3 matches reaching their conclusion having played through the hottest part of the day and yet another major sporting final well under way on the club house TV. Watched by a small group of rather enthusiastic tennis fans Rafael Nadal was 2 sets to 1 up against Roger Federer in the French Open and looking in good shape to win the 4th - "keep the noise down we're playing a match out here". This didn't seem to bother the U10's who kept their focus to win convincingly 4-0, not a single game dropped - well done gang! Oh, and well done Rafael.

15 May 2006: Lionel Cox Tournament 2006 - Well done Sian Green!
Sian was a member of the U10 girls team that represented Essex in this year's inter-county Lionel Cox Tournament. This annual tournament sees boys and girls from eastern region counties, including Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk and Cambridge, competing in what is always a closely fought team event for U9, U10 and U11 girls and boys. The event took place over two days - Saturday and Sunday 29th and 30th April - at Queenswood School in Hertfordshire and saw Essex win through to successfully retain last year's title.

By all accounts the most impressive team display of the day came from Sian's team. They won all of their matches on day 1 and went on to win their group without losing a match, and then beat Bucks in the final, again without losing a match. Another Cranston Park junior, George Gray, was invited to be available as a non-travelling reserve for this year's tournament. However, in the end, George was not required to travel at short notice, "phew" says Dad.

13 May 2006: Chelmsford Junior League U10 Billericay vs Cranston Park

None of us thought there'd be extra time. A fixture organised for 5:00pm on FA Cup final day was delayed by

15 minutes to allow the travelling team (Cranston Park) time to watch a full 90 minutes before setting off. We missed extra time and the pain of penalties but the roar of the crowd from Billericay's club house and its silence at full time kept us up to date. Sadly a loss for West Ham (what a final though!) but a win for our U10 team in their first match 0-4 (S. Green, L. Taylor, B. Bilton, G. Gray) - well done guys! A big thank you to Billericay who were great hosts laying on drinks and snacks for the team and parents.

9 May 2006: Junior Members Match Practise starts Wednesday 17 May
Every Wednesday from 5:00pm to 7:00pm come and practise your match playing skills with a mixture of singles and doubles play - just turn up and play!

7 May 2006: Chelmsford Junior League Boys U12 Wickham Bishops vs Cranston Park
"Has anyone got a number for the AA?" A comfortable away win for the team 0-4 (B. Bilton, R. Golding, A. Gray and D. Walker) marred only by Neil's clutch cable going just as he arrived through the gates at Wickham Bishops Tennis Club. Luckily the AA had little trouble finding us giving Neil, Dylan and the Vitara a chauffeur driven journey home.

	Cranston Park Lawn Tennis & Social Club