Welsh Invitational 2024: Sun & Games At Rydal

20/05/24: A gloriously sunny weekend saw the 2024 Welsh Invitational tournament take to the courts at Rydal Penrhos School in Colwyn Bay.

Always a highlight of the post-season calendar, the 2024 tournament saw a mixture of current and former Rydal pupils, staff, gappers and various guest players battle it out over two days of friendly but competitive action.

As always, the tournament was split into two halves; Saturday's competition featured a strong school contingent with boys and girls from Year 8 to Year 13 all taking part alongside the various adult players. A series of timed matches, with different combinations of partner and opponents each time allowed the school players to grow into the competition and the confidence of the players and the standard of their play improved rapidly during the course of the afternoon.

The Saturday tournament culminated in a final between the four most successful school players from the various matches. The match up looked promising, with each pair containing a Sixth form boy and a Year 11 girl as Will & Keira took on Ollie & Fflur. The second half of the match produced the expexted hard fought and close spectacle; however Will & Keira had got off a rather frantic and disastrous start, allowing Fflur & Ollie to get a long way ahead and establish a big enough lead to hold off the late comeback.

Looming Monday exams and other sporting commitments meant that the pupil representation was much lower for the Sunday competition. This meant a change of format - in one court, a three game challenge match between the EFA and the Old Rydalians, in the second court an opportunity for two of the three pupils - Ceylin, Evalyn and Amber the three dedicated players back for a second day - to get in some more match practice with the visiting players and in the third court an opportunity for some one to one coaching with the various assembled experts. The Rydalians drew first blood against the EFA with Tom Cotterell & Anthony Bowe beating the Bhattacharya brothers, but EFA honour was restored as Abs & Charlotta Cooley levelled the scores with a win over Tom & Matty Fiorita and Aroop & Harry Asquith won the decider against Matty & Anthony. 

The day's play culminated in a three way battle for the Sunday trophy between three pairs, each consisting of a former and a current pupil. Three timed matches were played, all of which were won by a single point and two of which had to go to sudden death overtime, before Tom Cotterell and his partner Evalyn emerged victorious in a thrilling finale.

Our thanks got to Ryan Kirby and everyone at Rydal Penrhos school for hosting the tournament and making us all so welcome, to all of the school pupils who played with such enthusiasm and enjoyment and to the adult players who gave up their time - and in some cases travelled quite considerable distances - to help inspire the next generation of Rydal players.

Saturday

Final

Ollie & Fflur beat Will & Keira 12-6

Sunday

Matty & Ceylin beat Anthony & Amber 6-5

Tom & Evalyn beat Anthony & Amber 6-5

Tom & Evalyn beat Matty & Ceylin 5-4

EFA beat Old Rydalians 2-1