The OKC tennis team managed to successfully retain the D’Abernon Cup for the 3rd year in a row.
The D’Abernon Cup is the annual competition of the Public Schools Old Boys’ Lawn Tennis Association (est. 1929).
Unlike last year when we had all sorts of injury and non-availability problems we were able to play the same team of Blake Hutchins/Stephen Morris and Chris Clark/James Mustoe in both the 1/4 final and 1/2 final rounds where we beat Old Georgians and Old Bromsgrovians respectively. Both these matches produced convincing wins against strong opposition, the 1/2 final win over Old Bromsgrovians being particularly satisfying as we had lost to the same players in the final a couple of years earlier. The final was due to be played on the grass courts at The All England Club but unfortunately as has been the case for the last couple of years the weather meant the grass courts were not playable and we had to move to the indoor courts. Our opponents in the final, which is a 3 pair match, were UCSOB and we were able to field the 4 players who had got us there plus Peter Dowdeswell and Scott Lloyd. Unfortunately UCS were missing a couple of players and whilst that would not have affected the end result it might have made some of the matches a bit closer, in the end we won 6-0 and so the 3rd round was not played.
My thanks to those who played for us and also to those other players who made themselves available but who were not able to be selected. With the final of the D’Abernon Cup competition the OKC tennis season closes down until we start the campaign to hopefully retain the cuo in 2014