TENNIS: Amherst Ladies Rule
There’s both strong local rivalry and shared camaraderie in relations between the tennis players of Amherst, whose club courts sit squarely in Hastings, and those of The Green, a mile or so west in St Leonards.
Amherst captain Nikki Crowhurst
On the men’s side, The Green’s doubles teams are currently a little stronger, at least when club coaches Joe Adams and Ross Cudmore (who were both until recently also coaching at Amherst) are enrolled to play. In the Sussex TDS Ultra Winter Doubles league, their first team is poised to be promoted from Division 3 to Division 2. Their second team has been playing alongside the Amherst first team in Division 5 East and beat them 3-1 in a head-to-head contest in December, albeit with Adams as one of their four players.
The respective ladies teams have both been playing in Division 3 and crossed swords last Sunday on the artificial clay courts of Amherst. These had absorbed a high level of rainfall over previous days, but conditions on a damp and breezy morning were relatively benign.
While Amherst’s top pairing of Anita Pearce and Jada Ani swept past The Greens’ second-stringers Sheila King and Heather Willcox to win 6-1, 6-0, the outcome on the court alongside couldn’t have been closer. Nikki Crowhurst and Pearl Hare won the first set 6-4 over The Green’s perennial competition pair, Beaula Page and Amanda Ruck, then succumbed 1-6 in the second. In the third set tie-break, Crowhurst and Hare just squeezed home 10-8.
In the reverse doubles matches, Crowhurst and Hare didn’t allow King and Willcox a single game, winning 6-0, 6-0; Pearce and Ani were also too strong for Page and Ruck, winning 6-2, 6-2.
The 4-0 overall win for Amherst puts them at the top of the Division 3 standings with just one match to play – next Sunday (3 March) away at Horsham, who are third. Horsham and second-place Angmering have an extra fixture, but it pits one against the other, so a 3-1 or 4-0 win for the Hastings team next week could see them secure promotion back to Division 2, just a year after relegation and despite not having won any of their first three matches this winter.
By contrast The Green look destined for relegation, though their last match, scheduled for 23 March, will be against fellow-strugglers Weald.
Also last Sunday, the Amherst mixed doubles team cemented their place at the top of the Wealden League with two wins and two walk-overs in a 4-0 home win. The only team to rival them for the year’s championship is…The Green, who have a match in hand and an outside chance of overhauling them. Local rivalry remains.
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