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Neil Smith won the Professional Singles title in Manchester, beating Mark Hubbard 16/14,15/12,15/8. This was 20 years after he won his first Professional Singles.

Neil Smith, who has dominated professional Rackets both in the UK and in North America for 20 years, won his 13th Scott-Chad Cup at the Manchester Tennis and Racket Club over the weekend of the 15th and 16th of January. Smith beat Mark Hubbard, professional at Radley College 16/14,15/12,15/8, in the final.

In the semi finals Smith had beaten Ryan Tulley ,assistant professional at Harrow,15/4,15/6,15/6 and Hubbard had defeated David Makey ,the Tonbridge professional, 15/5,15/4,15/10 The three games of the final were closely contested but in all of them Hubbard let Smith take an early lead. Neil led by 9/1 in the first game, 11/3 in the second and by 9/1 in the final game and although in every game Mark pulled back to level the scores he was only able to take a lead once, when in the first game he took a 1/0 in the set to three.

Neither player dominated from the service box. Neil served 13 aces to Marks 11 but it was only in the final game that he managed to serve consistently well eight of his service aces coming in the last game. Mark who looked a little short of practice, not having played a match since November, produced some spectacular shots but also more than his share of unforced errors, especially when trying to kill the ball. More often than not this resulted in a ferocious hit into the bottom of the tin.

Despite this both players gave the watching gallery much to please them, with some pure rackets, Smith in particular emphasising his sheer class with some wonderful kills straight down the line on both sides ,during the rallies, but also when returning serve, on occasion being particularly severe with his backhand, hitting it hard, low and to a perfect length. He remains a class above his peers in the professional ranks.

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