Good afternoon,

We wanted to share some good news with you… to celebrate and congratulate our fellow members, Aine Leonard, David Murphy and Conor Emerson who have performed excellently on the national stage over recent months and to highlight the achievements of Dave Cooney, Cormac Jennings and Colin Grant for being selected to represent Ireland on the international stage. In particular, I know Colin will not welcome such public notoriety, but it is extremely noteworthy, and our Club are very proud of his achievement. Read on for further detail…

Firstly, David Murphy won the O70s Men’s singles and Aine Leonard won the Women’s Singles 30/35 at the South East of Ireland Open Tour 1000 Masters in Waterford last weekend, the 3rd-5th March. Super performances by both and congrats on your wins! Aine’s great singles performance follows another great win in the Ladies Over 35 doubles at the Irish Masters National Indoors in Belfast last month. Aine is currently the Number 2 ranked player in Ireland for her age group at doubles.

Well done to Conor Emerson on his achievement of becoming the Number 1 ranked player in Ireland in the U12 Boys. This reflects all the hard work Conor has put in and hopefully other Sandycove Juniors will follow your lead throughout 2023!

Next up, congratulations must go to Dave Cooney and Cormac Jennings who were selected to play for an Ireland invitational side against Morocco in Agadir from the 4th – 6th March in an inaugural veterans U30,35,40,45,50’s competition between both countries. With both the President of Tennis Ireland and Leinster tennis in attendance looking to build relations between both federations. The level of play was high with long gruelling rallies played in 24 degrees on a surface the opposite to our fast artificial grass. The format of the competition was two singles and a doubles played over two days and despite improved performances on day 2 singles the Moroccan’s craft on the clay was at a different level as both were ranked in the top 50 players in the country. The final chance of redemption was the doubles and the lads took their opportunity putting in a great performance taking the 1st set 7/6. Unfortunately, it was only a moral victory but a victory nonetheless as a persistent blister deteriorated and Cormac was forced to retire. Overall a great experience and both lads have come back wiser to the art of clay!

Lastly, we are delighted to report that our Club President Colin Grant has been selected to play for Ireland as part of a 4 man team that will compete in the World Team Championships in Antalya, Turkey, from the 19th – 24th March (see further detail at link below). Following the recent devasting earthquakes there had been a doubt over the event taking place but it has been confirmed it will go ahead. Colin has been finalising his practice on the Winter League 2nd team who are through to the quarter-final of Class 4 this weekend!

ITF MASTERS TOUR WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

By way of background to Colin’s selection for the upcoming competition, in 2022 for the first time ever Colin entered the men’s singles of three seniors’ tennis competitions. Colin played in the Over 50’s in the South East of Ireland Championships in Waterford, the Irish National Close Championships in Cobh and the Munster Clay Court Championships in Tipperary and won them all! Colin also played for Leinster in the Interpros in Belfast last September and won his three games. What a run of wins!

Colin won ranking points at each of the above played events and as a result became the Number 1 ranked player in Ireland at Over 50 level in the Tennis Ireland rankings. I know Colin finds this all very surreal.

Colin, in his own humble manner commented “that he is just the latest person from Sandycove TSC to play in this event and the Club have a very long list of past and present members that have won a national tennis title and/or played at representative level. We also have a number of other members that are fully capable of playing at representative level if they entered competitions. It follows the huge success that the club enjoyed in senior league last year, which was our joint most successful league campaign ever.”

On behalf of the Committee and the entire Club we would like to congratulate Aine, David, Dave, Cormac and Conor on your recent successes and to wish Colin the very best of luck in Turkey over the coming weeks.

Sarah, Jenny and Greg