MINEHEAD Tennis Club held their annual Primary School Challenge last Thursday afternoon for seven and eight year olds (years three and four).

The event was supported by Tesco and 14 teams of four from Minehead, St. Michael’s, Dunster and Exford First Schools took part.

They played games of short tennis – which uses a smaller court with larger, softer balls – and each child was scheduled to play six ten-minute games in a round robin format with their points scored in each game counting towards their team’s overall score.

So that as many children as possible could play, two parallel tournaments were organised, one for teams of two boys and two girls and one for teams of three boys with one girl or another boy from year two.

Unfortunately, heavy rain fell around 6pm and the tournament had to be curtailed as there was a danger of children slipping on court.

But enough matches had been played and points scored, with all the children having played at least three matches each, to calculate the winners.

The winning team was from Dunster First School (Dominic Hawkins, Lennon Furse-Sowden, Ashleigh Hickman and Lily Sutcliffe) and the runners up from Minehead First School (Peter Webber, Leo Ahern, Martha Milton-Jenkins and Sheni Thompson-Smith) . The Dunster team now progresses to the county short tennis finals to be played at the Blackbrook Tennis Centre in Taunton.

The tournament for teams without two girls saw Dunster School take both the winners’ and runners up’ spots. The winning team were Oliver Groves, Ethan Mitchell, Jude Stanbury and Izabella Antonelli, and the runners-up Harry Vince, Jake Woodward, Zacc Binding and Noah James.

Trophies, medals and certificates were presented to the children by Club president Bob Pye.

Thanks went to the 30-plus tennis club members who baked and donated cakes, supervised the 16 short tennis courts, helped the children to keep score accurately and wrote certificates. More members served tea and cakes from the clubhouse kitchen and burgers from a barbecue. Also thanks to Paul Yates from Tesco who supported the event with many of the consumables.

l Minehead Tennis Club holds regular weekly coaching sessions for players of all ages and abilities, has a junior coaching programme and can provide squad, group or individual lessons.

Coaching usually takes place on a Monday or a Thursday at the club and further information can be had by contacting Andrew Disney on 07712 116123 or [email protected]

Rusty Rackets also takes place every Saturday afternoon from 2pm and non-members are welcome -, contact Pete on 07792 176118 for further information or just turn up.