Send us a text This week we welcome to the show Mat Johnstone, Hampshire tennis native and the UK’s Number One PST3 Para-Standing Tennis player. Mat shares his journey from an up-and-coming tennis junior at Warsash to top Para-Standing Tennis player with an eye on the World Top Ten rankings for 2026. Mat shares his early experiences in tennis, the life-changing impact of meningitis at 17, and his subsequent rehabilitation. We talk with Mat about his transition from wheelchair tennis to ...

Send us a text Welcome to the show Richard Cutler, Charity Director and Councillor at Hampshire & Isle of Wight Tennis, the county authority for tennis that brings rhyme and reason to the way tennis functions across the county. Have we had a better opportunity so far to better understand how tennis works in Hampshire than this interview? I don’t think so! Richard was well prepared for this one - lots of engaging discussion and plenty of facts and figures. Ever wondered how many tennis pla...

Send us a text We’re back from travels just in time to do our final Southampton LTA winter leagues check in before the end of the year. This time we take a look through ladies doubles where 33 teams representing 21 clubs are midway through the season across five divisions. There are a few surprises up and down the divisions, with the biggest of them all being the relative performance of last year’s dominant Bassett and the resurgence of Thornden in Division One. But is it sustainable? S...

Send us a text We recreate the magic (or the tedium, if you’re of that persuasion) of the big end of year league AGMs, not least for Tom’s benefit since family duty called him away. Would things have ended differently if he'd been there? Before the AGM reviews, we discuss the emergence of a Hampshire tennis player in the professional world tour - will 2026 be the year that Ringwood’s Toby Samuel cracks the code on the tour? We’ll be watching. And the men’s winter doubles leagues a...

Send us a text We’re back in Hampshire this week, where Annual General Meetings are in full swing at clubs around the county. We’re excited for the Southampton LTA and Apsley AGMs set for December 3rd. Will anyone run against the incumbents for leadership positions? And what happened to Tom’s committee position, which he was voted into last year? He’s not a happy chappy. Before that, there’s a bit of news from around the county, including a green light for building Winchester’s Acoustic...

Send us a text Join us on the podcast's first ever Road Trip, which takes us to Indiana, deep in the US Midwest, where we find young Hampshire tennis star Magda Kornijczuk at the very beginning of a two-year tennis journey at the University of Indianapolis. Magda shares her journey from the UK to the US, some of the cultural differences, the intensity of college tennis, and the supportive environment of her team. She reflects on her training, competitions, and the importance of mindset ...

Send us a text This week on the pod we catch up with Twyford’s Dick Moulds - groundsman, trustee, diplomat, gentle club godfather and sports omnivore. A member for 50 years, Dick is the man behind the scenes for most of what you may know already about Twyford tennis club, and a fountain of wisdom on club lore. Did Matt Le Tissier really play for the club? Are there strategically placed divots in the grass? And how do two bona fide grass courts survive hidden away in one of the most excl...

Send us a text Join us for our 50th episode, with a HUGE thanks to all of you who have supported the show over the past 18 months. Whether you've been a regular listener, an occasional visitor, a correspondent or a guest, your support is the fire in the belly of the show. In this episode we look back on 50 episodes and think about how to grow the show from here, wonder if our recording sessions at the Utilita Bowl might be raising eye brows, discuss club news from Winchester and, of course, t...

Send us a text Winter is here! And it's the best part of winter... the very beginning. Everything is still possible, and it isn't even that cold, that dark or even that rainy. Remember this feeling when December arrives. We talk festive calendar dates (the tennis kind - get ready to mark your calendars for AGMs and the Solent Cup). We also examine the start-of-winter split in the David Lloyd tennis community, a county-interest topic given that every club has at least one David Lloyd player in...

Send us a text We ran out of time on summer wrap up last time out, so this week we take the deep dive on how ladies and mens doubles closed out the summer. We review Warsash's remarkable run to win mens doubles overall. Is this the springboard they need to have another go at the Apsley next summer? Where are they in the winter leagues? Tom's troops from David Lloyd WestEnd also had a go in the mens doubles, we look at where they ended up. Over in ladies doubles, Thornden and Winch...

Send us a text Division One ended in style, so we take a final canter through the Apsley League to celebrate the winners, and commiserate with the losers. No fewer than three teams managed to trip the Apsley League's new points deduction rule, giving up two points each for every fixture that they conceded as a walkover. All three went down in the end, and it didn’t have to be that way. Have clubs learned a lesson? We’ll see next summer, but the new rule was certainly effective. We look ...

Send us a text The sun is dropping that bit earlier, players are dropping out of the pro tour to rest and there are just four fixtures left in the Apsley League - summer is well and truly coming to an end around us. With the final weekend ahead, we look at the biggest prize left on offer - Division One survival. All four teams at the bottom of Div One are in action this weekend. Which two teams will survive out of Riverside B, David Lloyd Southampton B and Thornden B? One of them will b...

Send us a text Thornden have won the Premier Division for a third successive summer, but Riverside took them all the way in their fixture - so nearly getting the win, and forcing a tie. Wellow are on the up, we debate whether their new courts - subject to local press interest this week — will be enough to help them stay in the Premier Division next season, now that they are locked in for promotion out of Division One. Twyford A went down in the end, but at least the C Team (featur...

Send us a text Saturday September 13 was originally scheduled to be the end of the summer season when Apsley schedules came out all the way back in April. As it happens, this summer’s rollercoaster of heatwaves and washouts means we will still have a dozen fixtures left after Saturday is done, but plenty of things will be decided this weekend. Tom doesn’t see any way Thornden can’t realistically wrap up the Premier Division, but the Inception-level scenarios around Premier relegation me...

Send us a text We’re getting to the business end of the season, which is a terrible time for Dave to be stranded in America and Tom to be busy in Southampton. We can’t unite for a dual podcast this week, but we’ve got a Quick Hit update here to get you up to speed. The County Champs are over - it looks like a changing of the guard among some of the elite men could be on the cards, while on the women’s side of things it’s good to see last year’s runner-up go one better this time. I...

Send us a text We're reunited in the UK and joined by another special guest! Pete Guerreri, from tennis royalty in Swanmore and currently captain of the National League team from David Lloyd West End, joins this episode. There's certainly plenty to talk about. Pete and Tom shares some memories from their debuts at the Hampshire & Isle of Wight County Championships, which wrap up this weekend. They give their own experiences some pretty high ratings. But... we can all strive fo...

Send us a text This week we look back on a high-octane weekend of action that made Thornden champions-elect, brought Winchester A its first win for almost three seasons, and shows us that South Hants B could sweep in on Division Three out of nowhere. The County Championships start this weekend. Tom is taking part, and we get his thoughts on signing up, the onerous availability requirements (turns out it's not so bad actually!) and how deep he hopes to go. In the weekend ahead we have so...

Send us a text Club summer seasons will be made and broken this weekend in the Apsley League, so how could we possibly leave you hanging without an episode? Dave is in Greece and Tom is working hard on the day job but we found a way to make this episode against all the odds. We talk about where the tables stand now that the season is 75% complete — and who has promotion or relegation on the line this weekend. Before all that we congratulate the Hampshire warriors who played at the Maste...

Send us a text Mike and Jay Barry join as our sixth and seventh guests on the podcast. We talk about the origins of Riverside Tennis Club, who they consider their biggest rivals, and what the future holds for the club. On a more personal note, we reflect on sibling rivalry, their pathways into coaching, and their advice for young Riverside players who want to push on into semi-pro tennis. Stick around for the Barry Brothers’ Dream Club Challenge at the end! Who created the best Dream Cl...

Send us a text The summer is flying by, and this weekend could bring the first crown in the Apsley as Compton look to see off resurgent Winchester in Division Four. Elsewhere, Riverside play Destroyers of Dreams as David Lloyd Southampton make the pilgrimage to Wiltshire. Can they equal or better Twyford's 1-7 loss last week? Premier Division survival could depend on it. We had a lot of great feedback o our Ladies Doubles episode, including a voce message from David Lloyd. Listen ...