Bournemouth Satellite

A week and a half before the Bournemouth I managed to sprain my thumb, playing a ball game with 7 year olds……they were too tough for me!

I was hoping it would heal in a couple of days…..oh how wrong was I!!!!!

I only played doubles at the Bournemouth, playing with a fellow Hampshireite. We were seeded 2, had a bye, then our opponents had withdrawn, because one had torn his achillies! OUCH!

So we had one game against a Dorset 2^nd team pair, beating them 16 and 6. Thumb was very sore, had to block drives as I couldn’t drive back….my thumb couldn’t take the impact from a drive and then push back with any force. Fortunately Rowen (my partner) was smashing well from the back, so I could float around at the front!

We were in the semi’s after one match………..and the semi’s were on Sunday. So after a couple of hours hanging around and one game, the 45 minute drive home to a wedding reception in the evening. No drinking and laughing at very dubious dancing, hit the hay at a reasonable midnight.

Got up the next day and headed down to tournament, held in a very nice posh private school. We played the semi final against friends Simon and John, we won 16 and 16, they usually like to play a flat game, but the fact my thumb was really sore after the day before, meant it was block and follow in.

Then was the final, it was nice to be joined by the folks who were on a jaunt for Mother’s Day, they made it down to see most of the first set and all the second as we lost to Graham Hurrell and Mark James, losing about 15 and 19. We were coming back from 15-20 down, but made an error at 19 – 20 so match was over.

Was an excellently ran tournament, with online entry, easy to understand plan as to when you’re on next and friendly faces to run it. Well done Mister Wells.