School's seven selected for Suffolk

AMBERFIELD School's growing reputation for producing strong tennis players has been further strengthened after seven of its pupils were selected to represent Suffolk.

The Suffolk school, which has just received confirmation of LTA club status, has seen pupils Maddison Jones, Lara Chittick, Victoria Christie, Nia Braidford, Louise Dickman, Hannah Stokes and Eloise Head all played for their county in recent weeks.

The school is currently awarding a tennis scholarship to the very best young player each year, Hannah Dale the latest to be selected after Chittick became the first last year.

Kathy Martin, Amberfield's Director of Tennis, said: “I am immensely proud of all the girls, they have worked so hard and played some fantastic tennis this season.

“We try and build on the tennis academy here every year. Last year we started match play sessions in the evenings and this year we started some elite squads for the very best girls. Next year, who knows?”

It has already been a very busy season for Christie who played in the Mini Green event recently, leading the team to first place victory.

Prior to this Christie won the Suffolk Under-12 Starter Tournament Grand Finals and was part of the U10 National Club League team which won a very close match against Huntingdon Tennis Club.

Mini Red players Dickman, Stokes and Head played to a very high level at the recent Mini Red Grand Finals, finishing second, third and fourth place respectively.

Braidford, last year's winner of the Mini Red county finals, played exceptionally well and this year she was the runner up in the Mini Orange county finals.

Senior player Maddison Jones is the highest ever rated player at Amberfield and travelled to the Channel Islands recently to represent Suffolk in the U18 County Cup.

In 2007 Amberfield awarded its first ever tennis scholarship to Chittick and since then has made phenomenal progress, improving in leaps and bounds.