Frome Tennis Club juniors recently enjoyed a winning spree, with three of the club’s junior teams triumphing in the Junior Team Tournament.
Frome hosted one of the events against Beckington, with mixed teams of boys and girls competing in three age groups: nine and under, 12 and under and 14 and under.
Winning results for Frome were as follows: nine and under won nine matches to one; 12 and under won nine matches to one; and 14 and under won seven matches to three.
Development and funding officer Mattias Warner said, “We believe events like this are great experiences for juniors playing friendly tournaments and also prepare them for Official Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) competitions to come.
“This is an annual event we organise, and this year Frome played against Beckington and Cheddar. Each team hosted matches and the most matches won on the day claimed victory.
“Our juniors did themselves proud and beat Beckington 25 games to five! Beckington has a great team, so that was no small feat. The sportspersonship was impeccable and it was a fun event for everyone involved.
“A big thank you to all the parents who came along to support both teams too! Also, thanks to Stephen Marcelle for organising it and to our chairman, Tom Jones-Marquez, for hosting the event on the day.
“Our coach at Frome Tennis Club, Stephen Marcelle, prides himself on providing affordable professional coaching while making tennis fun for the children. He encourages all the juniors to be their best and also spends a lot of free time outside of lessons helping them progress further.
“We also run a Reaching Out Tennis Scheme for juniors, which Stephen is very involved with and subsidises the lessons provided to make our Sport England and Somerset Sports & Activity Partnership funding go much further.”
Last year, Stephen was awarded the Somerset LTA Coach of the Year 2024 award. “This was a testament to his dedication to junior tennis in and around Frome,” explained Mattias.
“The future of junior tennis in Frome is very bright and with so much talent emerging, there is no limit to how far many may go. It is not all about competition though. We are reaching out to everyone in the community to play either competitively, for recreation or for the social side of the sport.
“Our mission as a club is to encourage people of all ages and abilities to be active and enjoy all we have to offer the community, conveniently located on the Mary Bailey field in Victoria Park.
“As well as the Reaching Out and Amazon Prime Girls Schemes, which offer a girls-only beginner training course, we continue to run programmes for juniors and also provide other subsidised schemes for adults, including Tennis Express and two-bounce tennis.
“Please check our website for further details if you are keen to join in and we hope to see you on court soon.”
For more information, visit www.clubspark.lta.org.uk/fromeselwoodtennisclub.
Cover Image: Stephen Marcelle receiving his award from Simon Brand, Lawn Tennis Association councillor