Jenny Mears, Sophie Annett (Captain), Jennie Pope and Ros Hursell at Portswood.
Captain Sophie Annett’s team started the Hampshire and Isle of Wight League season with a home match against a team from the coast. Alverstoke are one of the older established Tennis Clubs in the country, having been in existence since the 1880s.
Andover’s first pair, Claire Reid and Ros Hursell are both playing for Hampshire this year. They began the evening well with a speedy 6-0, 6-1 win over the visitor’s first pair.
Sophie Annett and Christine Pickford also did well against the visitor’s second pair, winning 6-3, 6-2. The second round saw Reid and Hursell continue as they started, dismissing the Alverstoke pair without losing a game, 6-0, 6-0.
Annett and Pickford put up a good fight against the Alverstoke firsts but were just pipped in a tie break first set to lose 6-7, 3-6. The Andover team had achieved a win by three rounds to one.
For their second match the team travelled to Portswood , a club set in a garden square surrounded by large Edwardian houses in Southampton.
Jennie Pope and Ros Hursell got off to a poor start, losing the first four games but showed their determination and experience to fight back and came out on top 6-4, 6-3 after two hours against the Portswood first pair. This was backed up by Jenny Mears and Sophie Annett who got through 7-5, 6-2, versus the Second pair after a similarly long match.
Pope and Hursell then made swift work of their second match winning 6-0, 6-0.
Mears and Annett found the first pair too strong and lost 1-6, 0-6 but the Andover team won the match by three rounds to one again.
Two matches with two wins is the perfect start as the team look for promotion to the top division.
