An Award Winning Weekend for Maidstone Lawn Tennis Club!
Maidstone Lawn Tennis Club Scoops Top Award from the Kent LTA and Head Coach Wins the Elite Men’s Doubles of the Maidstone Open – all in One Weekend!
It is official – Maidstone Lawn Tennis Club (MLTC), a volunteer run community club based in Allington, has been awarded one of the highest accolades from the Kent Lawn Tennis Association for Britain (LTA). Winning ‘Club of the Year’ for Kent. The very next day, their Head Coach, Zane Cheeseman, won the ‘Elite Men’s Doubles Final’ of the Maidstone Open, the ‘Men’s Singles’ was won by MLTC member Andrew Heath, ‘Mixed Doubles’ won by members Solene Dawson and Andrew Heath and an ‘Over 60’s Men’s Doubles’ winner was also an MLTC member, Steve Turner – so there are celebrations all round at MLTC.
On Saturday 7th March Co-Chairs Richard Dawson and Georgina Noakes attending the LTA Awards Dinner at Tudor Park Hotel along with other members of the tennis committee to hear of their win. MLTC also received a £500 voucher for club maintenance from event sponsors ‘Trevor May’.
Richard said: “It is thrilling to gain such an accolade from Kent LTA. At MLTC we enjoy being part of the community, as a positive and fun tennis club for all ages and abilities run by volunteers. Seeing our collaborative hard work in running MLTC acknowledged officially is exhilarating, it is so encouraging to have Maidstone forging the way. The award win is exciting because this has led to us now having the honour of hosting the official Kent Open Day for the whole of the county – we had better start growing the strawberries now!”
MLTC put their win down to the progressive nature of the club. Club membership grew by 25% in 2019 many of which are new junior and family members (leading to extra junior coaching sessions now being offered) encouraging the younger generation to engage with a healthier lifestyle. MLTC had a very successful summer season, winning Ladies Division 1 & Men’s Division 1 & Combi (mixed) division 1 in the midweek Maidstone and District League as well as the Kent men’s division 10. They have launched new club branding, an updated website with online court booking system, club clothing and are drawing up plans for a new clubhouse. An LTA safeguarding audit said MLTC exceeding standards set by the LTA and suggested they were within the top 5% of clubs visited.
Giving credit to the Coaching Team for this award is also important. Head Coach, Zane Cheeseman from ‘HOTSHOTZ’ is one of the best in the UK having won the Elite Men’s Doubles Final of the Maidstone Open 6 years in a row and is also the Number 1 seed for Doubles over 35’s in the UK (16th in the world) and Number 3 seed for Singles over 35’s in the UK (68th in the world!).
At the awards, Zane was also nominated and shortlisted for ‘Club Coach of the Year’ and the club’s win means they have been put through to the LTA South East Regional Awards.