About the fibnal night of Monday nights tennis

Below is the speech for the Monday evenings tennis, and as an attachment it’s the full list of ranking and then on a separate sheet it’s the final tournament results showing the winners!! And also attached is a photo of Roger and John having been given wine bottles as a reward for all their work, a photo with Roger rewarding Paul Coldwell as the top man in the tournament (in second place), and two pictures of Roger rewarding Sandra Peterken as the winner of the whole tournament. See you next year?? John

John’s Speech
First of all, thanks to Roger Cowe for running most evenings. And thanks to Julia Faherty and Caroline Coffin for helping with the evenings and sometimes taking over fully from Roger. And thanks to John Fudge and Geraldine Bear for running one evening, And thanks to John Fudge for doing the statistics again. And thanks to Amy and Chanya for hanging around till late on Monday evening’s providing food and drinks despite having not so many customers!

Statistics
Last year 28 members gave Monday night a try and this year it was 40 members although quite a few only played once or twice?? 9 members hadn’t played with us before or last year
Last year 19 out of the 30 members turned up enough qualify for the tournament but this year only 14 of the 40 members turned up enough to qualify for the tournament.
Last year it was just 18 weeks playing because of court re-building work and this year it was just 18 weeks (before the final social night) because of bad weather?

Most Dedicated members
Okay, so there has been 18 night’s play before tonight. Roger Cowe has played for 15 weeks and contributed £75 to the club. Paul Coldwell and Caroline Coffin turned up for 16 weeks and each payed £80. But only two members attended for 19 evenings and contributed £95 to the club and that’s Richard Caira and John Fudge. What heroes??

Rogers Speech
Thanks for John for doing the statistics again every week and sending out the emails – which you members may not realise means that John pops down here on a Sunday evening to see who’s signed up.
So, to the results.

As usual, we name several winners – the most improved player over the year, which is about how many places somebody moved up the rankings; then the best players based on points scored throughout the season.

Most Improved Players!
We’ve changed how we calculate this. Previously it only applied to people who had also played the previous year – we compared their position at the end of the two seasons. That’s a bit unfair to new players so this year we’re including everyone who has played – or at least everyone who joined by the end of October.

That covers 29 players, 13 of whom moved up at least one place in the ranking. Curiously, Charlie Sweeney moved up 3 places, even though he only played one evening (because the people above him moved down)! But two people moved much further than that – Geraldine Bear started at number 13 and moved up to 6th out of these 29 players. But the most improved, rising from 15th to 5th, is Sandra Peterken. Well done – and here’s a bottle of wine.

The Highest Tournament Scores!
As last year, this is based on the average score per game across all the evenings people played – which means it’s not necessarily someone at the top of the ranking. It’s one of the nicest aspects of the winter league that you don’t have to be the highest ranked player to win.

This year we’ve made what might be a controversial change – I’ll be interested to hear what people think afterwards.
In the past we named the best woman and the best man, but that doesn’t seem to make much sense as we all play in the same competition – we don’t have separate men’s and women’s groups. So this year we’re being gender-blind, just looking at the highest scores.

So, in time-honoured fashion, in reverse order, in 3rd place let’s hear it for Vicky Gilbart (who unfortunately can’t be here) with 0.54 points per game. In 2nd place is Paul Coldwell, with 0.55 points, and the overall winner, with 0.6 points per game, is Sandra Peterken.