Janice Torr of Billericay opened up with a win in the girls U16 singles of the 'Save & Prosper' Essex Open Junior Tennis tournament at Gidea Park.

The tournament, which has 300 young competitors from all over the country participating, started on Monday with a programme of 120 matches, and has been continuing all week with the finals on Saturday.

Janice, who had a bye in the first round, beat Rachel Bagguley 6-0, 6-1, to go into the last 16 on Monday.

In the boys 16 and under singles, Sam Pedder of Cranston Park won his first two matches, beating Lee Duncan 6-0, 6-0, and A. Ubhi 6-2, 6-1.

The boys 12 singles saw Mark Klein of Brentwood Hard reach the third round, after beating S. Sehmi 6-0, 6-0.

Faris Khatib of Clearview also reached the third round with a victory over D. Vance, and Ben Pritchard of Gidea Park beat Alex Chan 6-4, 6-0.

To reach the same stage, Mark Weatherup also of Gidea Park, won his opener against J. Fuller, 6-3, 6-1.

The 21 singles got underway on Monday and there was success for Robert Gordon of Gidea Park who beat Lee Graham 6-1, 7-6.

The tournament has 24 events and most of the finals are scheduled for Saturday.

Gidea Park finals

The Gidea Park club held the finals of its club tournament and the singles title went to Marge Rimmer and Richard Stephens.

Rimmer won the ladies singles with a 6-1, 5-7, 6-1 win over Denise Gould.

It was quite a match in the heat of the day.

Denise had the second set wrapped up at 5-1 but then was pulled level to 5-5 before taking the match to a third.

Richard Stephens won the mens singles beating Cary Willson 7-5, 6-4.

This was another tight final with Stephens just taking the honours from the English international.

Wayne Lemoine and Cary Willson won the mens doubles, after beating Richard Stephens and Julian Lewis 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 in another close match.

The ladies doubles was another three setter with the honours going to Denise Gould and Marge Rimmer, who beat Kate Weatherup and Jane Burditt 6-1, 5-7, 6-3.

Heat exhaustion caused the mixed final to be left for another day.

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.