Sunday, 27th of August at the Good to Great Collector Bank Area, Danderyd, was the setting for this year’s annual and always, hotly-contested, Söder tennis championship. With the weather, traditionally, proving to be pretty inclement in the last few days of August here in Stockholm, the championship was held indoors which proved to be not only a magnificent setting but a classy one too, and boy, was there some classy tennis action on the 3 side-by-side courts as the morning turned to afternoon! A lot of ‘ringers’ turned up to play which always makes for top competition.

Hot favourites and eventual winners, Jimmy and Big Blå were brought back down to earth in the first round of fixtures losing 6 – 3 to Ned the lover of Led and Danny Perillo. Meanwhile, centre court action saw the South Africa duo of Loges and Big H blowing a 4 – 2 lead to the late additions to the tennis ‘tournie’ of DK and Murphy, who powered through from behind to come out tops 6 – 4. This momentum gained by this cool and composed pairing saw them see off their next two sets of opponents to qualify automatically for the final, which was again to be staged on centre court. They would be heading into this final with an ‘undefeated tag’ – heavy lies the crown proved to ring true come finals time!

Other highlights from the first three rounds of pool fixtures saw a few tie breaks which always makes for exciting and at times, some desperate tennis and attempts with some of the Söder boys throwing their bodies around the courts. What was pleasing was that not too much colourful language nor raw emotions were thrown around but would tennis be tennis without a racquet or two being thrown at least once? Keeping with this theme, there was some racquet throwing on court 1 in the final round of pool fixtures – no names mentioned but one of the opponents happens to hail from WA, who got aced, so a lot of antagonising had taken place back and forth.

2023 winner Jimmy O and Big Blå