CHETWYNDE, Church Walk and Lindal and Marton schools went to the top of the class at the Furness mini tennis finals.

Teams from the three schools claimed the titles at Ulverston Leisure Centre as players displayed rock-solid serves, strong ground-strokes and sublime volleys.

Year 5 and 6 pupils making up 11 teams from eight schools contested the district finals having qualified through competitions for the Furness Academy, Ulverston Victoria, Dowdales and Walney and Catholic schools clusters.

Two teams each from Yarlside and Chetwynde, plus Low Furness and George Romney made up the field in the large schools event, with a brace of teams from Lindal and Marton, plus one each from Church Walk, Burlington and Our Lady’s Ulverston in the small schools tournament.

Each competition was played in a round-robin format, with all the schools playing each other to decide the champions.

Two boys and two girls, ranked numbers one and two, made up each team, playing their respectively ranked opponents in singles games on the indoor courts.

Chetwynde A finished ahead of Chetwynde B in the large schools event, with Church Walk and Lindal and Marton A tying at the top of the small schools table.

All four teams will go forward to represent Furness in the Cumbria School Games in Carlisle on July 12 – where they will be looking to help the district retain the overall county title.

Furness school games organiser Oliver Carswell said: “The competition ran very smoothly because of the great facilities and the amount of quality leaders we had – we were able to get through 100 matches within two hours.

“The players were all of a really good standard and there were some incredible points played, some went on for around 20 to 25 strokes.

“A lot of matches were really close in scoreline as well. It shows how much hard work the teachers and coaches have done with them over this year.

“I have a very good feeling about our teams winning the county finals from what I have seen.”

The competition was officiated by 14 Year 8 students from Furness Academy, who were overseen by tennis pro Gary Weatherburn.

Carswell added: “The Year 8 students were absolutely fantastic. It is quite rare to get such a good group of 12 to 13-year-olds who are comfortable and confident enough to officiate a competition of this standard.

“Part of that is due to the great work Gary has done with them through training and being their go-to guy if ever they were unsure on something.

“The competitions would not have run as well as they did without his help.”

Every player who took part in the district finals received a certificate and the top teams in the large and small schools events were awarded medals.