NCL Match Report v David Lloyd Raynes Park – Sunday 26th April 2026

We welcomed the current national champions, David Lloyd Raynes Park to our club last Sunday for our second NCL match of the campaign. 

We knew it was going to be a big ask to beat them as they sent a squad full of highly ranked ATP players and also included Jamie Baker who represented Great Britain in the Davis Cup and was British number 2 in 2008.

The weather was beautiful and a large crowd gathered at our club to cheer our boys on. Our team was Pat Brady, Alexis Canter, Josh Sapwell and Josh Rose with Robbie Ridout who was a non playing member of our squad on the day.

Well, what we witnessed for the next 5 hours was tennis of the highest quality and a Berkhamsted team that played their hearts out for the badge and came agonisingly close to toppling the current champions.

The singles didn’t go well for us as Pat Brady lost 6-0, 6-2 to Harry Wenkeldon (ranked 230 ATP) and Alexis Canter lost 6-3, 6-1 to Ewen Lumsden (ranked 520 ATP). Josh Rose, playing his first singles match for over a year battled hard against David Qualle but was beaten 6-4, 6-3.

However, Josh Sapwell put in an unbelievable performance to beat Jamie Baker 6-3, 6-4 and keep us in the match.

So, 3-1 down after the singles we needed to win both doubles to take the match to a shoot out. The boys rallied and showed amazing fight and quality to win both doubles and level the match at 3-3. Josh and Josh won 6-2, 7-6 and Pat and Alexis who recovered from their singles defeats to beat the players they lost to 6-4, 3-6, 10-7 in a nail biting championship tie break. 

This took us into unchartered territory as we had to play two singles tie breaks to decide the match. Alexis lost 10-7 in his against Harry Wenkeldon but Josh once again showed his total desire and dedication to our club by coming from 8-4 down to triumph 11-9 and take it to a 10 point doubles shoot out.

The atmosphere and tension was unbearable as Pat Brady and Josh Rose played out the deciding tie break. After being ahead for most of it, they were clawed back but managed to reach match point at 9-8. Unfortunately, they couldn’t take it and Raynes Park took the tie break 11-9 and the match.

It was a heartbreaking defeat as we did not deserve to lose, but the boys put in a monumental effort and were one point away from beating a top class team and national champions.

All the boys gave everything, but special mention goes to Josh Sapwell who won his singles, doubles and singles tie break shoot out to almost single handidly get us over the line. A truly amazing performance from him.

We as a club are going from the plucky underdogs to serious contenders to win a national competition sometime in the future.

We have now won and lost one match in the qualifying group and lie 4^th in the table.

We have 3 matches left to play and they are all away against Roehampton, Queens and Gidea Park.

We will probably need to win 2 of our remaining matches to qualify for the play offs, but with the squad we have I believe we have every chance of achieving this.

Our next match is away to Roehampton on Sunday 10^th May. Due to court restrictions the start time is 10.00am. I appreciate this is an early start and its a fair way to travel, but it would be amazing if as many of you as possible could make the journey to support the boys against another very strong team who have made the NCL final in the last 4 years, winning it on 3 occassions. 

Finally, I just want to say a massive thank you from myself and the team for the incredible support you gave us on Sunday. The atmosphere at our club is like no other we play at in this competition and I know is the envy of the other clubs involved.

Have a great Bank Holiday weekend 

Phil Casserley

NCL Team Captain