Dear Members,
Welcome to the October edition of ‘The Tennis Captain’s Newsletter’! I hope you are all enjoying the calm after the storm. This is a quick overview of last month’s events and a look ahead to what’s on the horizon. Please contact me if you have any questions or want to know more about any of these events. Club events are also published on our website and on Facebook and Instagram.
Quote of the month;
‘You have to believe in the long term plan you have but you need the short term goal to motivate and inspire you.’
Roger Federer
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Friday Night Social Tennis
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Induchem Senior Close Championship 2025
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Junior Close Championship 2025
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Munster Tennis Winter League Phase 1
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New Members Night Thursday October 16th
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American Tournaments
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Members Achieving Upgrades
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Irish National Closed Championship Masters Events
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Junior Tennis Update
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AOB
1. Social Tennis
Social tennis is ongoing most Fridays! It is great to see twenty plus members (both old and new) signing up and playing each Friday. Thank you to the Tennis Committee members for keeping it going and to Jim Collins when we can’t! Do consider coming in and encouraging your friends also, it’s a lovely social evening where you might meet some members you haven’t seen in a while or haven’t met before. All grades are welcome to attend, €5 for tennis and pizza! This is the sign up link
Alternatively, you can sign up using the link on the club website or you can use the QR code on the Social Tennis poster on the main notice board in the clubhouse. There is a tennis committee member on site every Friday to run the event.
The next dates are;
October 17th
October 24th
October 31st
2. Senior Close Championship 2025
The Annual Close Championship took place from Sunday September 14th to Friday, September 19th and it was a tremendous success despite the horrible weather!! Thank you to our sponsor Induchem, whose continued support helps to make our Close the success it is. A huge thanks to Valerie Carroll, our Tournament Director and to Bernie Kenny and Valerie Noonan for the work they put into making this very important tournament on the Club’s calendar such a memorable experience for everyone involved. Thank you to Ger Flynn our Tournament Referee and to all our members especially Triona Fitzgerald and Gillian Brown who gave so generously of their time to make sure the event ran smoothly. And last but not least the Tennis Committee, a huge thanks to you all for your help and support over the week.
Finals night was great fun, super tennis, a delicious bbq and incredible moves on the dancefloor! Congratulations to all our winners!
Our winners;
Ladies Championship Singles G1&G2; Suzanne Malone
Ladies Singles G5&G6; Rosemary Ryan
Men’s Championship Singles G1&G2; Harry O’ Donoghue
Men’s Singles G3&G4; Damian Ryan
Men’s Singles G5&G6; Don Cahalane
Ladies Doubles G1-G3 combined; Ciara Fry & Lynn Moloney
Ladies Doubles G4-G5 combined; Karen Kenneally & Shauna O’Shea
Ladies Doubles G6; Catherine O’Shea & Anne O’Sullivan
Men’s Doubles G1-G3 combined; Daniel Joyce & Graeme McKechnie
Men’s Doubles G4-G5 combined; Tim Buckley & Hugh Robins
Men’s Doubles G6; Kevin Costello & Paul Kilcoyne
Mixed Doubles G1-G3 combined; Louise O’Mullane & Daniel Joyce
Mixed Doubles G4-G5 combined; Emily O’Donovan & Hugh Robins
Mixed Doubles G6; Aideen Creedon & Ronan Murray
3. Junior Close Championships 2025
The Junior Close took place from Friday September 19th to Sunday September 21st and unlike the Senior Close the Juniors experienced beautiful weather!
Thank you to Marie Duffy and Ger Flynn for all the work they put into organising this tournament for our Junior players, their commitment to the club and the juniors is amazing. Thank you to all the volunteers and the Junior Committee who helped to make sure the tournament ran smoothly. There was super tennis played over the weekend from the U8’s to the U16/18’s. I wish I could play like some of our juniors! Well done to all who played and huge Congratulations to our winners!
Our Winners;
Girls U12; Caoimhe Wallace
Girls U14; Annabelle Murray
Girls U16/18; Lily O’Donoghue
Boys U12; Dave O’Regan
Boys U14; Darragh Spillane
Boys U16/18; Killian Twomey
4. Tennis Munster Winter League Phase 1
We have entered a record 14 teams across all grades in this year’s league. The first matches will take place the weekend of October 12th, with the Men’s G3 and the Women’s G3 and G5 playing at home on Sunday the 12th. If you are around, your support would be greatly appreciated. A bit of encouragement is always welcome, to use rugby parlance ‘the 16th man’! Keep an eye on our social media over the coming weeks to see when the matches are being played and if you can, please come into the club and support our teams.
5. New Members Night
We will be hosting a New Members Night on Thursday 16th of October at 7.30pm. The aim is to present a short slideshow which will go through things like how to join a committee, how to enter Open Tournaments, what is Winter league, what else goes on in the club etc. We will try to answer any questions that may arise! All are welcome, but we really hope that our new members/returning members come along on the night. No sign up is needed, so please just show up if you are interested.
6. American Tournaments
The first American Tournament should have taken place last night, unfortunately Storm Amy had other ideas and we had to postpone. We will run the ‘first’ one on Friday next, the 10th with the same players who were scheduled to play on the 3rd. Some of those players may not be available for next week and in that instance we have gone back to the sign up form to fill the available slots. Hopefully the weather will be kinder to us next week. Social Tennis will not take place next Friday. The dates for the next tournaments are November 7th, December 6th and January 16th.
7. Members achieving upgrades.
Huge congratulations to the following members who, after a great summer of tennis have been upgraded. Well done to you all!
John Morrissey upgraded to 5
Siobhan Campbell upgraded to 5
Marguerite Maher upgraded to 4
Mike Clarkson upgraded to 4
Hugh Robins upgraded to 4
Vincent O’Donoghue upgraded to 2
Owen Harte-Barry upgraded to 1
8. Irish National Closed Championships Masters Events.
Huge congratulations to our members and friends who did so well in these events in Limerick and Waterford last month.
Ladies 50S Doubles Winner; Deirdre Swinburne and her partner Yuan Yuan Lu Flanagan
Ladies 55S Singles Winner; Jennifer Haugh
Ladies 60S Doubles Winner; Grace Reidy and her partner Pamela Cox
Ladies 65S Doubles Winner: Maura McCarthy and her partner Theresa Ryan
Ladies 65S Singles Finalist; Ann Coveney
Ladies 75S Singles Finalist; Suzanne Hayes
Mens 60S Singles Finalist; Joe Donovan
9. Junior Tennis Update
As above the Junior Close was a great success with some fabulous tennis played by our juniors. The club has entered an U11 Green Ball team and an U12 team into the Regional League. The U11’s had a 4-0 win against Mitchelstown this morning…Well done on a super performance!
An U14 team has been entered into the Carrigaline Cup. Good luck to all our juniors!
10. AOB
Over the past few months we have been working on setting up a WhatsApp group for our members. The goal is to make communication from the club easier and quicker. It will be useful for small updates, for example; social tennis reminders, court closure, courts frozen, Storm Amy (!) etc. This group will not allow responses and the messages will only come from 2 sources, the club office and the tennis captain. This Whatsapp group is named Sunday’s Well Tennis Club Updates. Please keep an eye out for an email from the club office over the next few weeks, this is an ‘opt in’ group so if you want to be in the group please click the link in the email. Email will remain the main method of communication within the club, this Whatsapp is only to supplement email and not to take over from it.
Have a great month of tennis!