With our first rounds completed, let's take a quick look at Portsmouth!

The Portsmouth league finished their first round on Wednesday since lockdown measures lifted and we're so happy that there were no glitches on the way! We thought we'd share some of their best stats and give a shout out to all the players involved!...

THE STATS!

• 36 players entered this time compared to 29 previously
   
• 5 Groups were created based on ability
   
• 89 matches were played in total out of 115, with a fixture completion rate of 77%, pretty good!
   
• 28 men and 8 women made up our players and there were ages ranging from 20 - 65 years old, which was great to see!
   
• 242 points were collected in total with 26 players earning their bonus ball points! Your prizes will be with you shortly and great planning!

the winners!

More details to come in the round reports sent next week and you can view the full results here but in summary:

• Group 1 - Terry Lawrence took it this time with 7 wins and a total of 16 points!
   
• Group 2 - Robert Hunt follows suit having won his 7 matches and gained another 16 points. 
   
• Group 3 - Will Martin worked his way to the top winning 6 matches and earning 14 points!
   
• Group 4 - In this group we had 2 contenders for the win with 10 points each. However, David Simmons takes the title as he beat Florian in their head to head back in June, so close Florian and better luck next time! Well done David!
   
• Group 5 - Sorin Botezatu is group winner with 12 points and winning all his 5 matches, well done!

what we liked

• Group 5 managed to complete all their matches, so 15 in total with everyone receiving their bonus points to claim their free balls! Well done Group 5! We also loved this Group 5 comment in particular from an epic match: Lyuba Anderton bt Elisa Lategano (Jun 5) 7-6 (7-5), 7-6 (8-6)

Just a fantastic match! Elisa is such a great fighter who I should learn from how to keep running every game till the very last possible chance to get it. Well done, bearing in mind this is her first attendance to the Local Tennis League round! Exhaustive 2 hours 15 minutes match with only brief breaks for a sip of water. We've experienced sun direct to face while serving, strong wind over battling vital points, and rain, eventually, just to complete the set of challenges brought to us from mother nature on the top of the match itself. But it was great fun, full of joy and fantastic moments. Good luck, Elisa, for the rest of the matches! See you soon on the court for more great tennis ;-) -- Lyuba

• Nearly all of you got to play in normal set format. We know it's been harder to book courts at this busy time and have offered the short set format to play in, but it's good to see you were able to play how you wanted!
   
• Some of you played some excellent points, with what sounds like a lot of deuces! Like this one below, Maksims Afanasjevs bt Daniel Alexandru Rada (May 28) 6-3, 6-7 (1-7), [10-3]

And again our match was very close. 2h long and maybe 30 deuces in total. Was very hot and sunny weather. Daniel is a very good player. Good luck and I hope things go better in your next matches.  -- Maksims

• As well as returning players we also had 11 new players to Portsmouth, 3 of which won their group!
   
•  Finally, we noticed good friendships have been made in this league so far based on the comments. A fave of ours was Terry Neale bt Dennis Greenwood (Jun 26) 6-4, 6-7 (1-7), 6-4:

Was so pleased to see Dennis is in my group again, as we always have a cracking match, and today was no different. As usual, it was a hard-fought 3-setter, taking just shy of 3 hours on a sunny and warm afternoon, but our combined age of 111 did not stop either of us battling all the way to the end! I edged the first set and then Dennis battered me in the second set tie-break. At 5-1 up in the third set, the finishing line was very much in sight for me, but true to form Dennis turned it into a nail-biter, fighting back to 5-4 and I only just managed to clinch it at the fourth time of asking. That puts me up 4-3 in our League head-to-head, and I very much look forward to the next duel. -- Terry

So big shout out to all our new and returning players in the Portsmouth league! We hope you enjoyed all your matches and the round report email with full details will be sent to you by next Wednesday.

Also big well done to all the players in the Wandsworth and Highbury Fields rounds who finished this week too! You can join the next rounds via the league pages so don't miss out and sign up now!