“Play Your Way To Wimbledon” proves a real hit at Deal Parochial.

“Play Your Way To Wimbledon” (PYWTW) is the largest individual mass participation tennis competition in the UK.  Its starts with individual tennis clubs and schools hosting their own competition heats, with winners from these heats progressing to the County Finals of the competition. The County winners then feed into the National Finals.

At Deal Parochial, we held competition heats in singles for girls and boys, last Tuesday afternoon.  As PYWTW requires its players to be 11 years old by 31st Dec 2022, all our Year 6 pupils and some of our Year 5 pupils were allowed to enter.

The glorious weather we had for the tournament was matched by the children’s enthusiasm for taking part.  14 boys and 8 girls signed up to participate in our knockout tournaments. All matches were timed to ensure that the tournaments ran smoothly and to schedule.

After lots of excellent play and some very close matches, we reached the finals when we converted our 3 mini-courts into one full-size court on our playground. Both the girls’ and boys’ finals which ensued were fantastic, full of great rallies and wonderful shots.  Isla became the girls’ champion, winning 5 – 1 in games against Amelia, whilst Noah became the boys’ champion by holding his nerve to win 3 -2 in games against Jamie.

Congratulations to Isla and Noah who now proceed to the County Finals.  Also well done to everyone who took part; your enthusiasm for tennis is inspiring.  Additionally, thank you to our Y6 Tennis Leaders who helped with the smooth running of the tournaments by scoring matches.