Dyer and Shier take the first step to All-England

THIRTY players from the Guernsey Schools' Tennis Club set out on the first stage of this year's Road to Wimbledon. For those who reached the local qualifying finals, another test awaits on the CI stage in Jersey in July, with the ultimate carrot being a place at the finals at Wimbledon the following month.

The top two girls, Joanna Dyer and Megan Hearse, had one of their closest matches for a long time.

Hearse, fresh from her runner-up spot in the CI Ariel Matchplay the previous weekend, took the match to her opponent.

Opening with good serves and quality, deep returns, Hearse was making Dyer work hard for her points.

Unfortunately for her, one or two key shots drifted wide and Dyer took the set, 6-4.

At the beginning of the second, Hearse took an early lead but Dyer dug deep.

She forced her way back into the game, eventually winning 6-2 after nearly two hours' play.

Both girls can feel pleased with their performance and look forward to playing in the county under-18 team.

The competition gave the next generation of players the opportunity to display their potential.

Rebecca Hobson showed great determination to take third place from the stylish Jessica Rigby.

Not far behind were the Davis twins, Rosie and Alice.

If the even-younger players such as George Fletcher, Hayley Winter, Annalise Falla, Louise Dorey and Bethany Hobson can keep progressing, they have the potential to match Dyer and Hearse in the near future.

As with the girls, the boys had a phased competition.

The early victor was Tom Bynam who won narrowly by four games to three against Daniel Moody.

The next group was very evenly matched, but the consistency of Jean-Luc Helmot saw him through to the first round proper in which he lost to David Campbell.

The latter excelled in the round-robin section along with Michael Trotter.

In the other half of the draw Tony Paluch, the youngest player, took games off all his opponents and finished with a 4-2 win over Will Garnett.

Harry Martel and Oliver Shier - fresh from a good weekend in Jersey - reached the final without dropping a set.

Shier served well in the final, but solid baseline play from Martel kept the games close and he was unfortunate to lose the first set 6-2.

However, he capitalised on some loose play by Shier in the second and romped to a 5-1 lead.

Shier took the next game to put the pressure back on to Martel.

Unfortunately he was never able to make the key shots tell and the set ended at 6-6.

The tiebreak was just as close, with Shier fortunate to edge it 8-6 and therefore the match.

Andrew Milton took a deserved third place.

He served particularly well and has added more control to his game.

Fourth-placed Chris Quevatre can feel pleased for making his first semi-final of the season.