Peeblesshire News | Sport | Peebles tennis nets success

Monday, 8th September, 2008

Published: Friday, 16th May, 2008 12:00

Peebles tennis nets success

A FINE summer evening at last, with both sides enjoying the excellent condition of Peebles courts, produced some very enjoyable play last Wednesday.

Once again the home team proved too strong for its opponents and was the worthy winner.

Full result: Martin Jeffrey & John Campbell beat D.Gelder & D.Howetson 6-3, 6-4; and beat N.Roxburgh & M.Bird 6-0, 6-1. Rob Smith and Tom Steele beat Gelder & Howetson 6-2, 6-2; and beat Roxburgh & Bird 6-1, 6-0.

Sunday saw Peebles LTC win a remarkable victory in the Borders final of the Scottish Cup against Melrose. Scottish Cup Captain John Lord, sidelined with a foot injury, had anticipated an impossible task, as several first team regulars were unavailable for the tie at the Victoria Park courts. However, as play started on the groomed red clay, it was evident that the result was not a foregone conclusion.

In the first round of matches the Peebles no.3 pairing of Rob Smith and Lorenzo Gonzalez, who had never played together in a Scottish cup match, defeated their opposite numbers in two closely fought sets.

Similarly, no.1 couple James Lord and Michael McGee, who had never played together previously, beat the very experienced Melrose second couple to set up a 2-1 lead in the opening round of matches.

Melrose recovered in the second round with only Lord & McGee being able to win, and thus setting up a final round to decide the tie.

John Campbell, the Borders League second team captain, and Steve Bell, newly returned from Indonesia, were able to combine their classic games to overcome easily the Melrose third couple, and it was the final match on court that was to decide the tie.

Lord & McGee dropped the first set against their Melrose opposite numbers but roared back to win the second set thus taking the match into a championship tiebreak. Lord & McGee took an early lead in the tiebreak only to succumb to nerves and both players double faulted to allow Melrose to recover to 9-8. In a dramatic conclusion, watched by a small crowd including Club President Jim Noble, McGee served strongly and in a short rally Melrose was unable to contain the strong ground shots of the Peebles pair, and netted the ball to give Peebles a 10-8 winning margin in the tiebreak.

Peebles now goes into stage 2 of the national competition to meet the winners from other areas; this is the fifth successive year the club has reached this stage.

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