Fish Hoek Tennis Club celebrated Women’s Day in the best way we know how: with good tennis, great company, a little healthy rivalry and, once the serious business was over, a table groaning under the weight of food and bubbly.
Eight women – Ruan, Louise, Sheila, Siân, Lindsey, Colleen, Carina and Carrie – took over two courts for a Women’s Day doubles round robin. The maths was beautifully simple: eight women, seven 20-minute rounds and a new partner every round. By the end, everyone had partnered with everyone else once – a format guaranteed to test not only your tennis, but your ability to remember who was actually on your side of the net.
While we played doubles, the competition was very much individual. Games won by each pair were added to both players’ personal tallies, with sudden-death deuce thrown in to keep things moving and occasionally raise the blood pressure.
We said it was all about having fun, of course.
We are also tennis players, so naturally everybody wanted to know the score.
Cape Town weather then decided it would like to enter the tournament too. A spell of rain briefly interrupted play and sent us scurrying for cover, but Mother Nature eventually remembered it was Women’s Day and decided to behave. The clouds cleared, the blue sky returned and we were back on court with our spectacular Fish Hoek mountain backdrop.
When the final calculations were done, Lindsey emerged as our Women’s Day champion with 32 games. Carina and Carrie shared second place with 29 games each, while Siân claimed third with 27. So much for a ‘friendly’ little round robin.
Holding the entire operation together was Tracy, our heroic timekeeper and scorekeeper, who had the unenviable job of watching the clock, recording the scores and herding eight tennis players onto the correct courts every 20 minutes. Any pleas along the lines of ‘but we were just about to win the game!’ fell, quite correctly, on deaf ears. A huge thank you to Tracy for keeping both the tournament and its competitors under control.
Once the last ball had been hit, the racquets were abandoned in favour of the clubhouse, where everyone’s contributions produced a magnificent spread of sweet and savoury treats. There was bubbly too – because after seven rounds of tennis and one rain delay, hydration was clearly very important, and we take these things seriously.
In the end, though, the best part of the day wasn’t the scoreboard. The changing-partner format meant playing alongside women we don’t necessarily partner every week, with plenty of encouragement, teasing and laughter along the way. It was exactly what the day was supposed to be: good tennis, good food and a chance to celebrate the fabulous women who make our club what it is.
Congratulations to Lindsey, Carina, Carrie and Siân, a huge thank you to Tracy, and thank you to everyone who played, brought something delicious and joined in the fun.
The only remaining question is whether our Women’s Day round robin should become an annual Fish Hoek Tennis Club tradition.
We suspect we already know the answer. 🎾🌸🥂