World Class Exhibition Match – Nov 2016
We were lucky enough to welcome World Champion Camden Riviere, World doubles champion Tim Chisholm, the greatest ever player and 12 time World Champion Rob Fahey and our very own Ricardo to the court at Prested for a fantastic night of Real Tennis!
British Open Doubles Final 2016
What an unbelievable game of tennis in an unbelievable atmosphere for the British Open Doubles Final held right here at Prested Hall! Richard Hall-Smith & Bryn Sayers did Prested, Queens and GBR proud!
But congratulations goes to our newest friends and deserving champions Camden Scott Riviere & Tim Chisholm! 5/6 6/2 6/4 6/4 to team USA. We look forward to the rematch in April!
The IRTPA Professional Doubles Championship
Earlier this month Prested Hall hosted the biggest tournament of its history, The British Professional Doubles Championships, kindly sponsored by personal asset managers CVC of London, branding consultants Barber Jackson, Hayman’s Gin of Witham, and others.
Pros came from all over the country but the final was, as anticipated, between the favourites Rob Fahey
(world champion for an astonishing 22 years until earlier this year) and his partner Chris Chapman (world number 6), up against Prested’s head pro Ricardo Smith and former Prested Pro Ben Matthews.
Ricardo came to Prested for work experience in 2002, which was when his potential was spotted and he has since become one of the world’s top doubles specialists. Ben Matthews was a world singles challenger recently, so the scene was set for some fantastic tennis, which was duly enjoyed.
In the first set (playing best of five) Smith & Matthews raced into an early 4-0 lead but Fahey at 48 (but still the world’s no. 2 player) sometimes takes a while to get into his stride, which he duly did, and with 6 successive games the first set disappeared.
The second set was nip and tuck with the underdogs only leading in the final stretch, and they scraped home 6-5 (“sudden death” being played in real tennis).
The third set was easy on paper but the 6-2 score to the No 1 seeds disguised a really tight struggle with many fantastic hard fought points.
The fourth set replicated the second with Smith & Matthews constantly lagging but scraping home by, again, 6-5.
So all was ready for a tense and exciting final set which again saw Smith & Matthews always trailing until they clawed back up to 4-4, at which point a really good chance for a 5-4 lead for Fahey & Chapman was thwarted by a freak bit of self-defence from Matthews, visibly deflating the opposition and giving his team the opportunity to make it 5-4, and then 6-4.
The full house showed its massive appreciation but even if Prested’s own had not won it would still have been the best night of tennis seen in its 17 year history.
Click here to view the video of the final put together by Mike Norgrove’s son, Henry. Our thanks to Henry.
Blake’s Old Racket
The winners of Blake’s Old Racket tournament were Sarah and Chris Hughes, with runner ups Colin and Archie Sprott.
