It’s 25 degrees in the middle of Summer; everyone is wearing white; the grounds are brimming with spectators; jugs are full with Pimm’s; the grass courts are in pristine* condition; the courts are packed with players pushing themselves to their limits…

That’s right, you’ve guessed it.

This week, I am at…

The Thorpeness Open Tennis Championships.

This is the Wimbledon of the East Coast and funnily enough, behind the actual Wimbledon Championships and the ATP 250 event in Eastbourne, this is the most highly-attended tennis event I have been at this year.

After a fairly disappointing week in Aldershot (this isn’t a tennis blog so don’t ask 🙂), I travelled to Suffolk to spend my first week off of the year with my family. Somewhat coincidentally, I managed to time my trip to coincide with the only tennis tournament that takes place in the tiny coastal village of Thorpeness each year – The Open.

While the village may be small, the significance of the tournament certainly is not, and I have now found myself transitioning from player to coach for the next few days. In the mixed doubles, my cousin, Tom S (the S is necessary), is playing with my girlfriend, Vic; Tom is playing the men’s doubles with a guy called Hamish; and in the ladies’ doubles, Vic is playing with my mum who is making her competitive tennis return after 13 years out.

This is the second Summer Vic has spent in Thorpeness, so I don’t think she was fully aware of what she had signed up to. Her first questions to me about the tournament were, “do they do the seedings on ranking or World Tennis Number?”’ and, “where can I find the draws online?”… I then proceeded to show her the hand-written draws that were on display at the club and I think that answered all of her questions.

I also banned Vic from taking her tennis bag on to court for any of her matches from the start of the tournament because that’s not what you do here. Even the fact that she and Tom each took a spare racket to court caused a stir, with someone declaring, “that is so Surrey to have brought two rackets”.

The sheer number of entries was phenomenal. There were a record-breaking 42 pairs in the mixed doubles and 41 pairs in the men’s doubles – the highest numbers since The Thorpeness Open was revamped 25 years ago, but also probably since the first Open in 1934. Moreover, there were 24 pairs entered in the ladies’ doubles event, which, to add some context, was exactly double the number of pairs that signed in to last week’s $25,000 women’s ITF event in Aldershot.

The 107 pairs were made up of over 150 players and 100 matches were scheduled to take place on Friday and Saturday. Luckily, despite some of the on court level being a bit suspect, The Open potentially has one of the most experienced and successful refereeing teams in the country.

The tournament director is Christine Truman, one of the most successful British tennis players of all time. She won the singles title at the French Open in 1959, aged 18; reached  the singles final at the US Open the same year; and made the Wimbledon singles final in 1961. On top of this, she won the Australian Open doubles title in 1960 partnering Maria Bueno. 

One of Christine’s daughters, Caroline, refereed the tournament and somehow, through her savvy scheduling, every single match of the planned 100  was on time, except for one… The reason one match didn’t go on on time was because one of the players, Tom D, was down at the local pub having lunch. I was told to call him and tell him that if he didn’t get to the club within 15 minutes he would be defaulted. When he did eventually get to the club, he was given a stern speaking to by Caroline in the tournament office (i.e. the club balcony). He wasn’t late for any of his matches again.

Despite the fact that players must wear all white clothing during The Open, some of the level of tennis failed to live up to the standards of Wimbledon, not least on Sunday morning, when the first matches were scheduled for 8:30 am, the morning after the infamous Marmalade Ball. 

For anyone unversed in Thorpeness lore, the Marmalade Ball is the biggest event in the social calendar here. It’s a themed dinner and party which takes place on the Meare and usually involves a lot of drinking until the early hours of the morning. In the past, some players have been known to go straight from the Marmalade Ball after-party to the match court…

In the ladies’ doubles event, the pairing of my mum, who competed at Wimbledon in 1987, and my girlfriend, Vic, who was women’s 1st team captain at Bath and plays division 1 County Week for Yorkshire, were slightly over-qualified for the draw in my opinion… This became particularly clear to me when one of the first things I overheard at the tournament was, “yes we won, but I’ll need a couple of glasses of Rosé before the next one”.  

Despite a shaky start going a break down in their first match, and only being the number 3 seeds, my mum and Vic managed to win the title for the loss of just 7 games. They beat last year’s winners 0&1 in the semis… They even overcame a woman who, after touching the ball with her racket, claimed, “that shot was going out, so that’s our point”. I have never seen that before.

At some point while I was watching one of their matches, I was told by someone, “you’re not the highest ranked player to turn down playing this event”. That put me in my place.

Apparently about 10 years ago, Christine Truman had sent Nadal’s agent an email inviting him to compete at The Open, before being met with a response of, “sorry, Christine, but I am in the States preparing for the US Open”. I think that’s a fair response. 

The mixed doubles event was slightly more competitive, mainly because the boy who was late for one of his matches, Tom D, who is a good player, was the number 2 seed with his partner Emma, but also because the wind picked up to about 40 mph when the mixed matches were being played. Vic and Tom S, stormed through to the final though, handing out a double bagel to last year’s winners along the way, where they met Tom D and Emma. 

The two Toms and Vic have all played at national level or higher, but I thought Emma, who has played nowhere near the amount of tennis as the others, held her own incredibly well and even managed to hit a return winner off of one of Tom S’ first serves. Tom S and Vic won the final straightforwardly to ensure Vic’s 100% win record at The Open, as well as my 100% coaching record.

However, the showcase final of the tournament was the men’s doubles, which was contested between Tom S and his partner Hamish; and Tom D and his dad, Henry. The ‘two Toms’, as they are referred to by their adoring fans, are like the Federer and Nadal of Thorpeness.

Two years ago they played together in the men’s doubles here and have since been banned from entering together by the chairman of the club for apparently making the event “uncompetitive” for everyone else… I’m not sure that’s how tennis tournaments work. But, nevertheless, their meeting in the final this year was the Suffolk equivalent of the 2008 Wimbledon final, where world number 1 Roger took on world number 2 Rafa in the greatest tennis match of all time.

The Thorpeness Open final was not too dissimilar. Despite Hamish having the world’s most consistent foot fault and Henry hitting more returns behind his head than in front of him when facing Tom S’ serve, the tension and atmosphere of this match rivalled some of the biggest tennis matches ever played. Two very one-sided sets saw them level at one set all, with a 10-point match tiebreak to decide the match. I think this was the first time in the whole event any match had reached a match tiebreak, and it was certainly the first time anyone had gone off court for a toilet break when Tom S and Hamish disappeared for 5 minutes in between sets to regroup.

I’m not sure what happened during their toilet break but they came back to court firing on all cylinders and won the match tiebreak 10-7. They were met with an eruption of applause from the 150-strong crowd at the end of the match, with someone commenting, “well done, but what a shame it is that Hamish is wearing black shorts”.

I hope I’ve managed to paint somewhat of a picture of this weird but wonderful event. Just speaking to people here made it very clear just how special The Open is to different families in Thorpeness and it is so charming that the same families and the same groups of people come back year after year to play and support this otherworldly event.