Jayne Stevens won the National Forest GC Championship

[<<] [>>] by Ray Mounfield at Ashby
1 Jul 2018 (GC - Championships)

The eighth Ashby CC National Forest event was held over the weekend June 30th - July 1st with a field of 12 entrants. Following a long spell of scorchingly hot weather the lawns had suffered and playing conditions were challenging. On Saturday, in a "qualifying Swiss" each player had six games. The manager's decision to play quarter finals, coupled with the overnight withdrawal, on health grounds, of David Bell rendered a consolation event impractical and left three competitors with no further involvement in the competition. Interestingly all six of Jayne Stevens' qualifying Swiss opponents were also quarter finalists.

The winning quarter finalists, who fortunately had each won in two straight games, produced a semi-final of Tim King vs Richard Brookes, which Tim won, with relative ease, 7-3,7-5 and a semi-final in which the two Northampton players Jayne Stevens and Michael Hills had a lengthy three game battle, resolved by Jayne winning 7-4 in the final game.

The final between Tim and Jayne had an inevitably late start, then went all the way to the thirteenth hoop of the third game. Jayne emerged as the worthy winner. For her it had been a long and tiring day - but clearly worthwhile. The photograph was taken by Richard Sanville, who had stayed to see the presentation.