A strong Essex line-up was pipped by Hertfordshire in the first round of the Barclays Challenge.

They finished second to Hertfordshire at the event which was organised by Norfolk and held at Corby Indoor Tennis Centre.

Four counties took part in the competition, with Norfolk leading and Hertforshire second after the first round. Essex were sitting in third with Leicestershire trailing them.

Essex girls Shama Naqushbandi and Melanie Hall won all their matches. Shama's sister Sabah won two matches and Catherine Norman came away with one win after some very close matches.

The Barclays Challenge is a new competition designed for older girls aged 18 or under who are at 4.2 rating or above.

Barclays Bank provided the prize money, with £160 going to Hertfordshire and the Essex quartet picking up £40.

The event proved popular and the organisers are now hoping to repeat the challenge in September.

Essex girls - the county's quartet who came second in the Barclays Challenge Play Tennis at Thorpe Bay

Thorpe Bay Tennis Club is opening its door from 10am on Saturday to would-be tennis players aged between 10 and 18.

As part of the Lawn Tennis Association's Play Tennis 99 initiative, the club's will be providing coaching and a chance to play free of charge.

Wickford Tennis Club held its Play Tennis 99 open day last Saturday and had more than 100 people come along. More than 80 were new to the club and a number joined on the day. Westcliff men all win in Senior Cup

Westcliff Hard Courts men's first team enjoyed success in the Senior Cup when they beat Essex rivals Connaught.

Shane Hurst, Simon Bonham, Simon Chesher and Nick Plappert all won as the Westcliff team beat Chingford team, which included Danny Ward and Phil Cliff, 4-0.

In the National Club Championships, the hard courts' over-45 team defeated Hazelwood and the over-45s beat Woodford Wells 8-0 in the Essex League.

The ladies' game against Connaught in the National Singles League was cancelled and will be rearranged.

Westcliff Hard Courts men's second team lost 4-5 to Loughton team Avenue. Mark Bertola and Lance Owen won three sets, while Steve Flemming and Alan Hill took one set.

In the Essex League, the hard courts' ladies beat Upminster's Cranston Park 14-4.

Tracey Chesher and Fiona Stone won five sets, Gemma Garvey and Amy Cockell took five, and Dawn Handelaar and Karen Poole won four.

In Southend and District LTA matches, Westcliff Lawn men's first team played the club's second in a double header. The firsts won the first game 4-0, but the seconds reversed the score in the second.

The first team players were Steve Wynn, Roy Peters, Dave Lamb and Tim Willcock. The seconds were Ian McDonald, Gary Rogers, Nick Brown and Suresh Krishnan.

There has been mixed fortunes for Essex at inter-county level. The county won the Lionel Cox Tournament at Norwich which saw boys and girls from eastern region counties, including Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk and Cambridge, competing at under-nine to under-11 level. It is the first time in a number of years Essex have won overall.

It was not such good news in the Under-13 County Cup where the Essex boys were relegated from group one to group two and the girls were demoted from group two to group three. Things hotting up for the summer league

The Leigh and Westcliff summer league has started its 50th season and continues to go from strength to strength.

With more than 1,200 registered players, the Leigh and Westcliff Lawn Tennis Association is one of the largest on the country and continues to grow.

The association was founded in 1950 to offer friednly competitive tennis to all interested players who frequently played at one or two-court clubs.

More and more clubs have joined over the years and the association now boasts 16 affiliated clubs, stretching from Thorpe Bay to Wickford.

The 13 summer leagues this year are divided as follows:

The mens' leagues, which contain five divisions

The ladies' leagues, which contain three divisions

The League (mixed), which contains five divisions. With three pairs from each club competing against each other and playing just two toe break sets each, the points are awarded on the basis of one point per set one.

This gives a maximum of six points available points for each match. The ladies divisions and tge gentlemen's have three pairs of the same sex in each team.

The League is quite unique because the five divisions are made up of a ladies' pair, a men's pair and a mixed pairing. The same points are available from a league formate that was started 50 years ago.

Results

League Division One

Westcliff Hard 1(Sue Levy, Nickie Dickens) v Southend Lawn 1 (Sandy Bysouth, Stephanie Bell) 5-7 6-2, Hard 1 (Bernard Horwood, Sue Blackshaw) bt Lawn 1 (Tim Padbury, Heather Bell) 6-4 6-3, Lawn 1 (Graham Evans, Graham Bell) bt Hard 1 (Keith Brohl, Dave Bishop) 6-2 6-4.

League Division Two

Kent Elms 2 (Gail Webster, Mary Moxom) bt Invicta (Ed Roseman, Barabara Flatt) 6-2 6-1, KE2 (Brenda Lincoln, Pete Beckwith) bt Invicta (Gill Tanner, Chris Smith) 6-2 6-2, KE2 (Nigel White, Ross Taylor) bt Invicta (John Tanner, Nick Treadway) 6-3 6-1.

League Division Three

Kent Elms 3 (Pat Rogers, Margaret Ward) v Hockley 2 (Pauline Bruce, Linda Keech) 1-6 6-3, KE3 (Janice Forsyth, Andy Forsyth) bt Hockley 2 (Steve Townsley, Sally Essen-Wilkinson) 6-3 6-3, KE3 (Norman McCouart, Dave Lincoln) bt Hockley 2 (John Ayres, Colin Bruce) 6-3 6-3.

Last week's Leigh and Westcliff LTA 14th winter championship results were provided by the association

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