On Saturday 25th September the Club will be holding its Annual Racketathon Charity Day which is in support of Amy’s House Charity.

In the Day…

In the day there will be various activities for members and their friends to get involved in. We need players to take part in our;

• 12 Hour Racketathon – Tennis, Squash & Racketball (Entry £5pp),
• Tennis Beat the Pro – Featuring Hallamshire’s Jonny Marray,
• Dunlop Racket Tester Session,
• Fastest Serve,
• Mini Tennis Tournament,
• Face Painting,
• Fancy Cupcakes & Coffee,
• Plus Fun Games.

Entry forms and sponsorship packs are available from the Club Reception.

Evening Entertainment…

In the evening the Club will present an evening of fun, food and live music, starting with a;

• Squash Exhibition Match – Featuring Hallamshire’s Nick Matthew,
• Champagne Hour - A range of fruity Bellini’s & Champagne on sale,
• A Hog Roast - a locally sourced freshly cooked Hog Roast
• The Sharp Cuts ‘Live’ – Featuring Sheffield’s Steve Delaney.

Tickets for the evenings entertainment are available to purchase from the Club Reception priced, £10 Adults & £5 U14’s and are strictly limited to the first 150.

All members and their friends are invited to join the fun and support this worthy charity!

For further information please contact Reception on (0114) 2662153.

See you there…

Sponsors, we would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge all our kind sponsors:

Field Design Associates; St James Place; Irwin Mitchell; Express Signs; Dunlop; Wake Smith and Tofield; Yummylicious Cupcakes; Phil Geesin Machinery; Direct Travel; New Channel Aerials; Chapman Brack; Caudwell & Co; Bespoke Blinds; Uncle Sam’s; C&S Crossland; Phoenix Computers; Handcock & Read.

Hallamshire Academy of Tennis will again be running a Tennis Assistants course here at the club.  The course is designed for Juniors between the ages of 13-17, who want to assist coaches at their local clubs.

The Tennis Assistants course is an LTA course recognised course which takes participants through 4 modules, that provides you with the you with different skills and experience and enable you to volunteer as an assistant coach, competition assistant, playing partner and promote your club.

Click here to download the application form

Jonny Marray

Jonny will team up with American Brian Battistone this week as Jamie Delgado takes a break.  After a disappointing loss at the quarter-final stage in Istanbul, Jamie decided to take a well earned break to recharge his batteries.  Jamie had played 6 consecutive weeks, which is a tough ask at any level, and felt that a week off then another weeks training to get some sharpness would benefit him hugely for the coming months.

With Jonny pretty fresh from a break after Wimbledon and some good training at Hallamshire he was ready to play, so he set about trying to find a partner for next weeks event in Manerbio, Italy.  After a few calls and text exchanged to various players Jonny found out the Battistone was also lookin for a partner for next week.  This could prove to be a shrewd pick from Jonny as Brian plays in the final of San Sebastian (Spain) today, so regardless hell be coming into the even full of confidence after a good run….let’s hope he can get the win today and bring that positivity to Italy with him!!

Jonny travels out to Italy on Saturday and will play his first round on tuesday or wednesday next week!

Good Luck Jonny!

Click here to view the draw

John Andrews (Left) & Ray Ranson - Competing in the Vetrans Grass Court Championships at Wimbledon

Ray Ranson and John Andrews, playing in the British Veteran’s Grass Court Championships at Wimbledon last week, lost the Over 70’s titles they won in the Indoor version of the events in January.

In an entry of forty-three Andrews, seeded 2, lost the Singles final 6-2, 2-6, 4-6 to the number 1 seed Clive Hutchings playing at his home club. Similarly, but as number 1 seeds, they lost the Doubles final 6-3, 2-6, 4-6 again to a ‘home’ pair, and number 2 seeds, Hutchings and Roger Ambrose.

Sorry John.....Maybe next year!!!

However, the trip had its compensations with both being invited to the Member’s Lounge, view the famous trophies, and walk into the Royal Box, suitably dressed of course. See photos. Andrews’s  white hair is a trick of the light!

Ray enjoying a beer.....after the match we hope!!

From the beginning of next term (sept 2010) we will be running a new social night for beginner and intermidiate standard players.  This is designed to intergrate players into the club in a fun and relaxed atmosphere.

Any A-C (see adult club rating chart) standard players are welcome to come along on a drop in basis.  If you are unsure of your club rating please contact one of the academy coaches who will be happy to help.

click here for coaches telephone numbers

There will be a coach present for the initial few session to help organise matches.  The social night will be on thursday evening between 7pm & 9pm and will run each week (depending on weather).

Click here to view the adult weekly time table

Shirley Headley

On Tuesday September 21st, the club will be holding a memorial event for Shirley Headley.  Shirley, who sadly died last year after a long battle with cancer, was an extremely active member of Hallamshire Tennis & Squash Club for many years.  She represented the club at many different events and was both a committee and board member, giving her spare time up, to help the club move forward in many different areas.

The event will be a Ladies handicapped ‘American’ style doubles, where over the course of the day players will mix and play with different partners.  We would like to encourage as many ladies as possible to support the event out of respect to Shirley, who helped make the club as successful as it is today.

The event will run between 10am-2pm with lunch and coffee served afterward during the presentation.

We all hope to see you there!!

(above are some of the players who played for the teams!)

12 & Unders:

Players: Alex Pearce, Leo Fieldhouse, Aaron Jessop, Sam Veall, Sam Marples, Kate Eastall, Lucy Da Costa, Leah White, Cameron Bell, Adam White, Sam Smith.

The Under 12’s had an excellent season, showing strength in depth by the number of players wanting to play. By winning our last 3 matches we came joint 1st, only to lose out on rubbers won and lost! A big thanks to all the players and parents, for making it an excellent season.

15 & Unders:

Players: Mark Eastall, Ethan Caris, James Ledger, Alex Basset, Tom Ferest.

Unbeaten, until the last match of the season we were top of the league up until the last day, where unfortunately we came up against a very strong graves team, 2nd place in a strong division is a great achievement.

Under 17s:

Players: Ian Reily, Kirsten Reilly, Matt Godden, Declan Quince, Elio Mercier, Jack Lancaster, Will Harrison, Daniel Black, Arshia Fatholah.

Big thanks to all the 17s most of whom played matches during there exams and gave up revision in which to do so. Some excellent performances throughout the season, in what was an extremely tough league.

Well done!

Coming soon!!!!!

The entry form the Club Championship 2010 is now available from the club and on this website!!

All box leagues will be suspended for the duration of the Club Champs to encourage a healthy entry.  Everyone at the club hopes that you can support the event and make it a important event in the club calendar this year and for years to come!!!

We want the event to be one in which we encourage all members, regardless of standard, to join in.  The bigger the entry the more we can group players of similar level.

Players new to competition, should enter the handicapped events in order to get the right level of competition.

This year the club champs is being sponsored by the Sheffield High School, and we thank them for their support of the the event!!

Click here to download the entry form

The Winter Series Mini tennis and Junior Matchplay dates have now been finalised.  The winter series events run from September 2010 – March 2011.  We have numerous events for players to get involved in.

All the information regarding competition can be found on the COMPETE tab on the website, downloadable enrty forms are available below!!

click here for winter series MINI TENNIS MATCHPLAY – entry form

click here for winter series JUNIOR TENNIS MATCHPLAY – entry form

The LTA are currently offering British Tennis Membership for free!!

Click here to find out more information on the benefits and to sign up

Hello to everyone at Hallamshire…

I’d like to start my first installment by thanking everyone at the club for their support.  Everytime I come back home to have some time off or to train, its great to feel the support and hear the well wishes…so thanks again. Oh and i did see a few of you down at Wimbledon this year, so i hope you had a great time.

With this being my first post, It’s probably best for me to give you a quick over view of my tennis career then some more details about my recent activity.

Early Years

For all of you that don’t really know too much about me, I’m Jonny Marray, I was born in Liverpool and moved with my family to Sheffield when I was 4.  I am the youngest of 3 children, my sister Siobhan is the eldest and my older brother Dave is the Head Coach at Hallamshire. I was started playing tennis when I was about 10yrs old at Abbeydale tennis club.  I showed good ability for the game and began to play local tournaments about a year later.  I really enjoyed the competitive side of the game and along with my brother Dave used to travel further afield to play in events.  By the time I was age of 14 I had qualified for the Nationals.  I went on to compete in the nationals tournaments in the 16 and 18 & Under age groups.  I was determained to finish my A-Levels so didn’t turn pro until 2000 at the age of 19, which is generally regarded as a late starter, as most of my peers had been playing international events from the age of 14.

Turning Pro

After completeing my A levels in 2000,  I wanted to fulfill my ambition to become a professional tennis player and to compete in major tournaments around the world.  I started by playing national tournaments and futures events which is the first tier of professionl tennis. In november 2000 I tasted my first suceess at futures level with a win in a 10,000 event in Lucknow, India and with it became a world ranked player.

Click here to view my Singles History

Doubles Specialist

Even when I was playing singles regularly I was also playing doubles.  Most players who compete at Futures and Challenger level have to play the doubles for financial reasons.  There isn’t a huge amount of money to be won at that level so doubles is a good way of boosting your prize money.  My serve and volley game is pretty much suited to doubles as well, so generally I did well when I played doubles.  It wasn’t until early 2009 when I started to seriously think about focusing my attention on doubles.  At the back end of 2007 and early 2008 I got a bad shoulder injury which mean about 7 months on the sidelines, 2 operations later I was back playing but was hampered by little niggling injuries which mean it disrupted the good part of 12 months.  To make it as a singles player is hard enough and although During 2008 my ranking steadily rose I was still stuck out around 400….I’m afraid there isn’t much money in the game if your 400 in the world!!!

During the back end of 2008 my doubles ranking started to improve and by the middle of 2009 I had broken the to 200 and was now only playing doubles, At the time I was playing with my good friend Jamie Delgado, and at Wimbledon 2009 we made the 3rd round defeating Mertinak and Cermak (No. 13 seeds) on the way.  We eventually lost to Zimonjic & Nestor (No.1 Seeds & Reigning Champions).  We’d had modest success during our time together and after Wimbledon we moved on to play with different partners.  My ranking continued to improve and by the time I teamed up full time with Jamie Murray at the end of 2009 I was around 125 in the world.

The second week of November 2009 is the week I made a a major breakthrough, and one I’ll never forget.  The first time in my career that my ranking was in double not triple figures.  I broke the top 100!!!  At the time it was just the natural progression but looking back now I feel proud that I achieved it.  But like all professionals it only inspired my to want to improve it even further!

Click here to view my Doubles History

2010 – Year to Date!

I had the pleasure of spending my New Year count down on a flight out to Brazil!  The year started for me and Jamie at Challenger Level, in South America…Sao Paulo (Brazil) to be exact.

2010 Starts in Sao Paulo

after making a good start getting to the semi’s that week we moved on to Equador and a place called Salinas,

Jonny & Jamie - Sailnas, Equador and our first title of the year!!

We played really well considering it was early in the year and managed a win!  This was important for a number of reasons, the obvious being ranking points but also because we spent and arm and a leg on the flights, recouped a bit of our outlay!!  We then made our way to Bogota, Columbia where we had a training week while being very well looked after by Jamies, girlfriends family then we went onto Bucaramanga which is also in Colombia where we disappointingly went out in the 2nd round.

The Challenger tour is a pretty good level but to really move up the rankings you really need to be playing the full tour event, but to get into them, your ranking needs to be inside 100 or so which is tough….but thats the way of the world in tennis, so you just have to go out and earn your opportunities!

After finishing in Colombia I had to get a flight back to the UK via Miami, and then straight on to Zagreb for our first tour event of the year (ATP 250).  Unfortunately it was short lived as we dipped out in a match tie-breaker to Peya & Kohlmann.  This was the start of a yo-yo month for us….

Bergamo Italy - really positive week for us!!

The following week we were back on the Challenge tour in Bergamo, Italy, where we won the event!! Beating Beck & Krkoska in a final set match breaker!!

After Bergamo we headed to Belgrade for the Serbian challenger…again we went out in the first round, very frustrating performance but considering we had played on an indoor, very quick surface in Bergamo the week before and then on a slow, really heavy clay court that week, I suppose circumstances were against us.

Cherbourg (France), the first week of March was an improved performance, we made the semi’s, losing out in a tight match to Mankad & Shamasdin in a match tie breaker.

Marrakech, Morocco 2 weeks later……..one to forget!! (first round loss)

Jersey.  Now were back in business.  Much improved week for us.  We played really well all week after scraping throuh the first round.  We lost in a 3rd set breaker to Bopanna & Skupski in the final but we felt like we played some better doubles!

After 2 quarter final losses in St Brieuc (France) and Johannesburg (South Africa) and a first round loss in Athens (Greece) we were really struggling for form.  Pretty low on confidence and needing to recoup some of the massive traveling costs we had forked out in recent weeks we arrived in Rhodes (Greece).

Runners Up in Rhodes

We played really well that week.  We’d had some good practice time after Athens and had spoken about how we needed to work on certain aspects of our game, and it definitely worked well.  We made the final and although we lost out to Brown & Stadler it was a much improved week and a well needed confidence boost for us.

Belgrade…again, this time for a tour event (ATP 250), came and went, quickly.  Cremone, Italy challenger we made semi’s which was ok, but just to give you an idea of the difference in prize money at the different levels of tournament….in Serbia at the ATP 250 event I made €980 for our first round loss and in Cremone for our semi final loss I made €325.  Clearly it pays to be playing at the higher level.  The problem is you have to have a pretty high joint ranking to regularly get into the ATP events.

The days after Belgrade were a nervous wait.  We know we were close to getting into the French Open but up until the last minute we weren’t sure.  Jamie’s ranking was about 100 and I was 75, making our joint ranking boarder line whether we would get in or not!  I had to keep my eye on things to see if I could find someone to play with if we didn’t get in but at the same time we had to prepare for the opportunity that we did get in…the reality of being a player who isn’t quite high enough to warrant direct entry!!  Eventually, though, we did get in.  It is always the most satisfying to gain direct entry into a rand Slam event and I feel privileged to have played at Roland Garros.  Of course that privilege very quickly turns to disappointment when you lose first round.  Again Just to highlight the difference in financial reward I earned €3,750 for the first round loss!!

Next up was the grass court season.  It started for us at Nottingham at the Challenger event there, a second round loss was not a great start to the run of 4 event we were to play.  At Queens the week after Jamie decided to play with his brother Andy, so teamed up with my old pal Delgy (Jamie Delgado).  We drew Novak Djokovic and Erlich.  We played a good match but nothing seemed to go for us and we lost in 2 tight sets.  The little consolation was the fact that those boys went on to win the event! Eastbourne again was a non event, we never got going and although we lost in the final set tie breaker we didn’t really deserve to go through.

Wimbledon:

Jonny & Jamie in discussion at Wimbledon 2010 - gutting loss to No.1 Seeds 15-13 in the 5th set!

Its always difficult to describe my feelings around Wimbledon.  The first obvious feeling is one of pride and excitement.  Wimbledon is a massive event, full of history and of course in the British public eye.  To be part of all that is an absolute honor and a privilege.  The flip side of the coin is the mass negativity towards British tennis and the players as a whole.  Apart from Andy we haven’t got anther player who will realistically challenge beyond the 2/3rd round.  This year there wasn’t many British men’s wild cards given out for the singles, which is of course the LTA’s prerogative.  All I would like to say though, is that I know a lot of the other British players and know that they are all working hard, year round, to try to improve and some of the press they get during the event is unfair.

Anyway….Wimbledon for me and Jamie was one of mixed emotion.  We went out in the first round, which of course is very disappointing, but we did play the No.1 Seeds and reigning champs Zimonjic & Nestor, and the match we played was a epic 15-13 in the final set.  We played some great tennis and really probably deserved to win.  From a personal point of view i was chuffed about how I played.  After wins and losses in doubles you must always rate your performances as a team, thats what doubles is about, but along the way you have to analyse your own performances as well.  This one was one of my best for a while and I took a lot of confidence from it.  Myself and Anna Smith went on to make the 3rd round in the mixed which was a good effort and an enjoyable experience.

We traveled to Newport, Rhode Island (USA) the week after Wimbledon for the ATP 250 event there, we were desperate to take out Wimbledon form over there and after a positive start were keen to push on.  We felt pretty good about things but unfortunately we came up a bit short in the 2nd round.

Bastad (Sweden) was again disappointing and proved to be our final event together.  Overall our time as doubles partners was productive.  I broke the top 100 playing with Jamie and we are still good friends.  And I wish hime the best of luck for the future.

For me, I embark on a new adventure with an old friend.  Delgy (Jamie Delgado) and myself will be teaming up together again for the next couple of months.  We start in Segovia (Spain) next week at a big $100,000 challenger event.  This past 2 weeks has been a combnation of some time off to recharge the batteries and some really good intense practice with my bro, Dave at the Halamshire (he can still hit it ok…for his age!!!).

Well thats it for now.  I hope this give you a bit of understanding of what its like to be a touring pro.  I’ll definitely be back up to Sheffield and Hallamshire soon, and i’ll be bringing Delgy along for some practice too, so i’ll catch up with everyone soon.

Jonny