Karen makes club dream come true
Basford's Rebecca Morgan in action.KAREN Dobson secured a dream result for Basford in their first VW ratings tournament when she lifted the women's tableau crown in front of her home supporters on one of the club's new showpiece courts.
Basford spent £93,500 on four floodlit artificial grass courts and opted to give them a high profile by staging a ratings event.
The Staffordshire women's squad player needed only two sets to dismiss county veteran June Fisher (Congleton). She raced to a 5-0 opening set lead before Fisher opened her account, but Dobson went on to tuck the set under her belt 6-1.
Fisher began to get the measure of the surface in the second set as the players reached 2 all. But Dobson's powerful baseline shots forced Fisher to make errors and the 34 year old Basford member went on to win the title after clinching the second set 6-3.
In the semi-finals they ousted the women's group 1 finalists. Dobson beat Rebecca Morgan (Basford) 6-0, 6-2, while Fisher gained at 6-4, 6-4 victory over Melanie Brown (Basford).
Warwickshire professional Peter Creffield took the men's tableau championship in a straight sets victory over Stafford coach Steve Davies.
Dug in
Games went with serve until they reached 4 all in the first set, with Davies 40-0 up to go 5-4 ahead. But Creffield dug in to secure the set 6-4 and stepped up a gear to cruise to a 6-1 victory in the second.
Creffield had earlier defeated Congleton's Dave Booth 6-1, 6-4 in the semi-final while Davies' Draycott opponent Andrew Cresswell retired injured in the third set of their semi-final encounter.
Results of the other section finals: women's group 1, Rebecca Morgan (Basford) bt Melanie Brown (Basford) 6-2, 6-4; men's group 1, Richard Sweetman (Endon) bt Dean King (Draycott) 7-6, 6-3; group 2, Andrew Hibbell (Florence) bt Tony Webb (Basford) 7-5, 1-6, 7-5.
Basford are the first North Staffordshire club to invest in artificial grass and their competition brings to a close the LTA Volkswagen summer series in which 10 other clubs in the county took part.
Andrew Foster comes into the spotlight next week when he begins his campaign for the British men's title in the Volkswagen Nationals at Telford. The former Basford youngster, now Britain's No 5, will be up against the best of the rest with no absentees from the British top 20.
Evening Sentinel, 25 October 1993
Courtesy of The Sentinel News & Media