SUMMERHAYES Tennis Club again defended their title recently as Barbados National Bank Inter-Club champions. Playing in the 2012 finals held at the National Tennis Centre on May 5, they edged Barbados Yacht Club 40 games to 36 to hold aloft the Inter-Club Challenge Trophy for the third successive year.
The 2012 tournament, which fielded seven teams after Paragon’s withdrawal, saw a new format with the first round being a round robin between all the teams and the second round a seeded knock out draw.
Following the round robin phase, Barbados Yacht Club topped the table with 246 points followed by Summerhayes (232), Ocean View (212), Windward (177), UWI (174), National Tennis Centre (162) and Fiat Holders Hill (103).
Barbados Yacht Club then received a bye into the second round with Summerhayes winning comfortably over National Tennis Centre 45-23 in the 1st round knock out stage. Also securing spots in the semifinal were UWI who beat Fiat Holders Hill 45-22 and Windward who beat Ocean View in a close 40-34 encounter. In the ensuing semis, Barbados Yacht Club was victorious over UWI 40-23 and Summerhayes brushed aside Windward 45-13.
In Saturday’s final, despite putting up a good fight, Barbados Yacht Club were forced to pass up their chance at the trophy after winning only one of the 5 matches. In the first Men’s Doubles match up, Bernard Frost and Wayne Forde of Summerhayes won over Kevin Lewis and Jimmy Tasker 9-7 and then Martin Frost and Michael Date achieved a similar result in the second Men’s Doubles for Summerhayes when they beat Brian Cadogan and Jason Small 9-7.
In the Women’s Doubles, Kim Brandford and Kayla Frost gave Summerhayes a third win coming back from behind to beat Donna Gibbs and Marie-Ann Gonsalves 9-6. Barbados Yacht Club was then able to pull one back with a 9-4 win from Jackie Marshall and Kelly Corbin against Marie-Jeanne Symmonds and Caryl Pearson.
The final and most keenly contested match of the evening was the Mixed Doubles which was the deciding factor for the BNB title. Summerhayes made few mistakes and won 9-7 with Prashant Nebhani and Kim Brandford overcoming a strong challenge from Peter Symmonds and Donna Gibbs.