Eight-year old Oliver Durham won last weekend's Essex Junior Under 9 Short Tennis Championships at the Hornchurch Sports Centre.

Oliver had battled through his round robin group with four straight wins and then beat James Gamby of Upminster in the quarter-finals, 11-7.

The semi-final pitted him against Robin Easton of Great Baddow. Robin had earlier beaten highly fancied Richard Nourse from Chelmsford 11-8 and Oliver powered through 11-3.

In the bottom half of the draw, another local player was quietly making his way through the competition.

Richard Rollison, of Little Baddow, eased past Max Tetlow from Epping 11-6 before overcoming the stern test of Chelmsford's Andrew Fairlie in his semi -final 11-8.

Richard took the opening exchanges in the final, racing into a 4-1 lead, but Oliver gradually began to assert his authority and went on to win 11-6.

Anybody who may be interested to know more about short tennis in their local area, telephone the Essex LTA offices on 0181 502 6364 and they will point you in the direction of coaching and courses available.

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.