RICHARD Tennant and Linda McMahon emerged as the stars of the show at Ludlow Castle Tennis Club’s annual championships.

Tennant took the Men’s Singles title and McMahon was crowned Ladies’ champion after an absorbing afternoon of exciting, top-class action for the club and its members.

Tennant triumphed 6-2, 6-3 in a terrific Men’s final against defending champion Chris Dowden.

The contest between two determined and consistent players reached especially high standards and it provided some edge-of-the-seat viewing for a large gathering of spectators.

The outcome of the match turned on the sixth game of the second set when Dowden, who went into the contest on the back of an impressive winning sequence, was leading 3-2 with a break and serving for a 4-2 lead.

Having lost the first set, it looked as if Dowden had the perfect chance to level the match but 13 deuces later his chance was gone and Tennant closed out the set to celebrate his first title after an epic struggle. One member of the club admitted “it was just like being at Wimbledon”.

The ladies' final between McMahon and Mary Lambert was equally captivating, a nail-biting affair with long, testing rallies and the outcome was always in doubt as the advantage and momentum swayed back and forth constantly.

Lambert served for the match leading 5-4 in the second set but was unable to finish it off.

McMahon roared back to break, reeled off three straight games and took the final into a deciding tiebreak.

In a wind-affected tie break, McMahon completed an eye-catching recovery to triumph 10-6 in the breaker, winning 4-6, 7-5, 10-6 to lift the trophy.

In the Men's Doubles final Dowden made up for his disappointment in the Singles’ final by teaming up with Jon Lewis to retain their title against Benet Walsh and Martyn Jones. The match contained long gruelling rallies but ultimately the pair with the greater consistency edged out their opponents 6-3, 6-2.

The Ladies’ Doubles was another tense, closely fought affair and involved Singles’ finalists McMahon and Lambert. Chris Hood and McMahon defeated Lambert and Meg Williams 6-4, 7-6. Try as she might the tenacious Lambert just couldn’t overcome a worthy opponent in McMahon and went down to her second defeat of the afternoon.

The final match of an enthralling day of tennis was an entertaining Mixed Doubles’ final that saw Julie Humble delighted at winning her first trophy as Ladies' captain.

She combined with Seabury Salmon to defeat Ken Swan and Chris Hood 6-2, 3-6, 10-7.

It was Seabury who proved to be the dominating force in the final tie-break.