Tenniskillen.com

Jared, Hannah, Oliver and Ciara top the leaderboard at the half way stage

After five weeks, the Junior Round Robin at Enniskillen Tennis Club sponsored by Enniskillen solicitors - John Quinn & Co has now reached the half way stage. This annual competition provides much needed singles match-play practice for our junior players in advance of the major open competitions of the summer. Twenty five juniors are taking part this year with five sections comprising of four players and one section of five players. After round one the leader within each group scoring most games moves up a section and the person with the lowest score in each section moves down. At the end of the two rounds, scores for each competitor are totalled and prizes are awarded to the boy and girl with the highest totals.

Consistent with his recent form, Jared Monaghan enjoyed three good wins to head his group. A win over Sarah Cousins 9/6 was matched by another excellent performance over Daire Dillon also by 9/6. Jared’s final round was against Ronan McKeever and although the contest was very keenly fought, Jared ran out the des erved winner 9-5. Group two proved even tighter. A win for Laura Griffin over Alison Glass put Laura in pole position. However, a return to his best form saw Sean Dillon beat Laura 9/6 to throw the whole group wide open once again. In the end, a narrow win for Laura in her third match over Kyran Maguire saw her pip Kyran for top spot with Alison upsetting the apple cart against Sean by taking that match 9/6. This Group typified the competitive nature of this event with each match very keenly fought and all competitors benefiting from the experience.

Group 3 saw David Casey notch up three straight wins. The deciding match in this Group was between David and the Round Robin specialist Oliver Guette who has performed consistently well in this competition in each of the last three years. With some good rallies by both boys, once again Oliver had the final say and took top spot. Conor Rippey enjoyed a narrow win over Fergal Quinn, with both boys obviously revelling in singles competition.

Two good wins for Aran Dillon saw him clinch top spot ahead of Ruairi Kelly in Group 4. Adam McShea put in a fine performance to beat Ruairi in an earlier match. However, a narrow win for Ruairi over James Johnston 9/7 was sufficient to seal second place for Ruairi.

In Group 5, the unbeaten Hannah Sharkey put in three solid performances to head the group ahead of Caoilte Hamill who won two matches from three. Ciara Griffin showed the improvements she has made to her game by taking Group 6 with three straight wins with Jack Balfour and Anna Guette tying for second place.

At the end of Group 1, Oliver Guette, Jared Monaghan, Hannah Sharkey and Ciara Griffin are at the top of the leader-board with 30 points each. They are closely followed by Laura Griffin, David Casey, Kyran Maguire, Sean Dillon, Jack Balfour and Anna Guette. But there is still a long way to go with the competition not being completed until the 28th April.