Portsmouth Tennis League champions pip Southampton winners after epic Solent Cup tussle

In the men’s competition, Chichester, representing the Portsmouth League, and Salisbury, the Southampton League, were both making a first appearance at this level.

Matt Worden and Joe Glover, Chichester’s top pair, soon settled and took the opening rubber in straight sets.

Second pair James Bird and Charlie Guimaraens were faced with an altogether more difficult task, facing Salisbury’s club coach and his partner, the Wiltshire county captain. The Chichester pair took the first set, but the experienced Salisbury pair recovered to win the next two closely-fought sets.

So, one rubber each at the halfway point – but Chichester had what might be a crucial extra set in the bag.

Salisbury’s top pair then really got into their stride, hitting winner after winner to take the 1s v 1s rubber in straight sets.

It was now down to Bird and Guimaraens. They had to win the rubber to keep Chichester in the tie.

A 6-2 win in the first set had the large contingent of Chichester fans roaring their approval. But Salisbury were not beaten yet and fought back to take the second set, setting up a winner-takes-all final set.

With the time clock approaching four hours of play, Chichester finally earned two match points – only to see them both saved!

At 6-6, a deciding tie-break was required. It was nip and tuck all the way to 6-6 in the tie-break.

Now every other point was a match point. Salisbury earned and lost the first two, but Chichester won the next one and a booming Guimaraens serve made sure no more were needed.

But the calculators were still required to determine the winners. Rubbers were shared 2-2, and sets 5-5, but Chichester had taken 51 games to Salisbury’s 44 and they took the cup home to West Sussex for the first time.

The ladies’ match, played alongside the men, was a little less exciting.

David Lloyd West End (DLWE), representing Southampton in the Solent Cup for the first time, turned up with the Hampshire county ladies’ captain alongside the No1 ranked lady in the county. Lee (Portsmouth’s representatives) simply couldn’t match that strength.

DWLE ran out comfortable 4-0 winners, but not before their two teenage starlets, Sophie Grist and Chloe Efford, had shown the county captain their potential when they took a set off her and her partner and kept her on court for an hour and a half before going down in three sets.

There was no respite for the courts at CourtX, as the home club’s third and fourth men’s teams met to claim division three ‘bragging rights’ for the summer.

The opening rubbers gave no indication of the way the match would finish, with both top pairs comfortably overcoming the second pairs.

But the reverse rubbers were entirely different affairs. Both went to a deciding third set and there was a remarkable similarity in the scores, with the fourth team winning the 1s v 1s rubber 6-4, 3-6, 4-6 and the 2s v 2s match 6-2, 3-6, 4-6.

One division down, Southsea 1 got their season off to a good start with a comfortable 4-0 win over Warsash 3, while CourtX 1 ladies pulled off a 3-1 win away to Lee’s second team.

There was another 3-1 win for Chichester ladies 3 against Rowlands Castle 2 in division four.

Midweek action saw Ryde Lawn mixed masters 1 held to a draw away to CourtX, with the rubbers and sets shared. Ryde claimed the extra winning draw point by winning 43 games to CourtX’s 36.

And finally, two rubber wins for Jane Mellor and Lynne Foster earned Rowlands Castle a point in their ladies’ masters encounter with Swanmore 2, but Jane Crawshaw and Gita Kaushik took a set off the Castle pair and that was enough to give Swanmore the winning draw points.