The OT Real Tennis pair of Richard Dalzell (HS 54-58) and Sam Lowres (WW 11-16) have won the Cattermull Cup, the Annual National Schools’ Alumni Handicap Doubles Tournament.

The tournament was played at the Middlesex University Real Tennis Club in Hendon from 4 to 6 April 2025 and involved 20 schools from around the country. The pairs from each school were organised into four groups of five, with each school to play all of the others in one short set of first to five. The winner of each group would go through to the semi-finals.

The OTs, with quite a high handicap, were drawn to play on the Saturday morning and our opponents were Haileybury (won 5/1), then Wellington (won 5/4 having saved a couple of match points), followed by Charterhouse (won 5/0) and finally Sherborne where we won a tight match by 5 games to 3. So we won the group and moved forward to the semi-final on the Sunday morning.

The semi-finals and finals were to be a more usual best of three sets to six. Our opponents in the first semi-final were Epsom College where in the first set we came back from a 4/1 deficit to take it 6/4 and then won the second set 6/3.

In the second semi-final, it was Harrow 1 v Harrow 2, with the first (much stronger) pair taking the first set 6/2 but then they made a few unforced errors, and it was Harrow 2 who managed to come through to win the next two sets 6/4, 6/4.

So the final was always going to be against Harrow but against the pair with a similar handicap to ourselves. We managed to win the first set 6/2 but the second set was far from easy as Harrow got into their stride. We were down 4/1 at one point but, with a slight change in tactics, got back to 5 all and Sam managed to take the final game from the service end. 

The combination of youth and experience worked well, with Sam Lowres providing the aggression, covering most of the court and improving as we progressed through the tournament; Richard Dalzell served well and demonstrated solid defence, for the OTs to win their first ever real tennis trophy.

Richard Dazell 
(HS 54-58)