Dan Rodrigues Men's two team clinched the Division G title on Friday after a resounding 6-0 win away to Oakwood 3.

Our twos have won all their 8 games and are still to lose a rubber, having a score count of 41- 0 to date!!

They will be looking to make it a perfect 10 wins in the coming weeks, something our Over 60s team achieved last season.

Pictured from left to right are Dave Williams, Richard Everson, George Mentessi, Dan Rodrigues, Richard Fearn and Nathan Burchell.

Hopefully the club can win a couple of more divisions to make it a great awards night at the Boathouse in October.

Bexleyheath Tennis club hosted a special tennis challenge as part of National Learning Disability week on 20th June. Co- organised by Bexley Mencap and NHS Oxleas Adult Learning Disability Services, over 30 people with learning disabilities took part in a range of fun tennis exercises set up by the LTA coaches Clint and Marc………. READ MORE

Tonight our vets 3 went on the road for our first away match against New Ash Green.

The team consisted of myself, Colin the backhand Stevenson, Andy the forehand Fish and John the Jonah Poole.
Unbeknown to me John hadn’t even won a rubber let alone a match.
Once I’d realised this I tried to cancel the match but to no avail, so we were stuck with john the junx Poole. How wrong was I! John took to the game like an avenging angel, he grunted and screamed as he smashed the ball back at the opposition, if they tried to pass him, he would dive like Gordon Banks and return the ball, if they tried to lob him, he would leap like a salmon (a tin of salmon) and smash the ball back.
John led us to a superb 4-0 victory, forever known as poolangrad or waterpaul.

And gentlemen in Bexleyheath now a-bed shall think themselves accursed they were not here, And hold their manhood’s cheap whiles any speaks That fought with us upon Saint John Poole day.

Mens 1 returned to North Kent action after a 3 month layoff with a comfortable 2-0 win over Meopham 1s.
Likely would’ve been an emphatic 4-0 win had we not been halted by light.

Battling performances by Timur & Charlie who split with their 3s and our youth system doing wonders with Richard F & Dan playing up and claiming a draw vs their 2s. Both pairs were then a set up in the second round before being halted by light. Dami and I took both our matches in straights.

Well played guys, onto Gravesham at home next weekend!

Great Support for this away fixture

The vets 3s took to the field again this morning. keen to get some points on the board after our defeat to our rivals, Oakwood last week.

The team was Morris and Fish as 1s, Kane and Stevenson as 2s, able support by George and Mark Mentessi, Dave W, Fuzz, Winthrope and Neil.

Colin and I took our 1st set, but struggled in the 2nd, soon news filtered through that our 1s were involved in a 1st set tie break that they lost! Colin and I dug deep and took the 2nd set 7-5.

This allowed us to watch the 1s 2nd set, that also went to a tie break that our boys won.

So at the halfway stage Bexleyheath had their noses in front, but we knew their 2s would give our 1s a match and Colin and I had to play their strong 1s.

Hard to say what happened next, perhaps the stars aligned, perhaps Paul and Andy had tired them, but Colin and I flew out off the blocks taking the first 9 points without reply!!!!

We continued in a similar vein winning the match 6-1, 6-2😁

This was just as well as their 2s won the last match.

so Bexleyheath won 2.5 to 1.5. Happy days!

After beating Park Langley a few weeks ago our Men's 1 played our second Aegon match this afternoon vs Bexley 2.

After a singles win from myself and Dan, Tom played an unbelievable singles rubber to beat Bexley's top seed.

Going into the doubles with a 3-1 lead, myself and Tom paired up at number 1 and secured a good win with Dan and Timur narrowly losing their doubles 11-9 in the championship tiebreaker.

So overall a 4-2 win and two victories out of two in our first year in Aegon against very strong teams.

The team was myself, Tom, Timur and Dan

The Tie lasted close to 5 hours with plenty of ups and downs.

We played Park Langley’s first team which is the club that our girl Emma Raducanu plays at.

In the first round Dan, Timur, Andy and myself each played a singles rubber.
We won 2 and lost 2.

In the doubles round, I paired up with Timur and Dan and Andy joined forces.
The Rodrigues brothers secured a victory in a championship tiebreaker after splitting the first two sets. Unfortunately, Timur and I lost 13-11 in our championship tiebreaker.

Score 3-3!

We were thinking we were done with the tie, resulting in a draw and that we could go home and get a cup of tea.

HOWEVER, their captain informed us that we would have to play a shoot out to decide the tie.

What happens is that you pick two singles players to play a championship tiebreaker first to 10 and if one team doesn't win both tiebreakers then you play a deciding doubles championship tiebreaker using the players that didn't play the singles tiebreaker.

SO MUCH TENSION!

Here we go.
I lost my championship tiebreaker, but Dan the MVP won his rather comfortably.

So there we were after 4hr 30mins of tennis without a winner. My back was killing me at this point!

Andy and Timur teamed up and managed to get to 8-9 down. We had to win the next point!

Andy fired two missiles from the serve on successive points to give us a 10-9 lead. On the next point, Andrew Rodrigues steps up and fired a gargantuan forehand crosscourt which forced an error from the opponent and secured us our first win.

The overall score was 6-6 (two points for every rubber won) and then 2-1 to us in the shootout.

We played away at Brenchley and Matfield. Our team today was Chris and Brian and Maggie and Mark.

We lost 3-0 today but our team played brilliantly -which isn’t reflected in our final scores. Chris and Brian secured a strong win over their number two pair. Maggie and Mark narrowly missed winning their match against their number two pair losing only in the tie break.

Sharon and I both enjoyed supporting our team today and were very proud of all four players - well done guys 👍.

It was an absolute pleasure to play at Brenchley and Matfield, they were welcoming and sociable and the match was played in good spirits.

Bexley Mencap supports people with learning disabilities and launched weekly Zoom online Tennis sessions in October 2020 to help with health and wellbeing during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The 12 regular members had mostly never played tennis before, and many had never taken part in regular sports activities. But they were inspired by practising tennis shots and playing a range of games online, using soft and felt balls, happy hands, and a special balancing mat.

Despite being unable to meet face to face, the group kept together throughout lockdown supporting each other with tennis equipment from an LTA Open Court grant.
Once the Covid-19 restrictions were relaxed the group successfully made the transition to playing weekly outdoors at Bexleyheath Tennis Club from May to October 2021 taking on new members and currently play indoors at a local sports centre.

Janice White, of Kent Tennis, said: ‘It is phenomenal to start a tennis-specific session from scratch in lockdown, maintain the group's interest, and then transfer them to get on the court.’

As a next stage, Bexley Mencap’s tennis team now hope to take part in Kent LTA’s Learning Disability recreational competitions in the summer.