PRESTON Candover pair Paul Cook and Steve Grove were crowned the new champions of the annual Basingstoke and District Tennis League men’s doubles event.

Playing on home turf, Cook and Grove came back from 3-1 down against defending champions Chris Pearce (Kingsclere) and Paul Rattue (Oakley), winning five games on the trot for a 6-3 success.

In the semi-finals, the Preston Candover duo beat RSF pair Pete Seaward and Chris Wise 6-1, while Pearce and Rattue beat Old Basing’s Phil Dixon and Preston Candover’s Mole 6-4.

In total 11 pairs took part, representing a good number of clubs in the Basingstoke and District League, and were split into two groups.

In the first group, defending champions Pearce and Rattue proved too strong for the opposition and won all their matches.

Rex Groves and Tim Rice (Totally Tennis) gave them their closest match by taking them to 6-4 and Cook and Grove also made them work for their 6-3 win.

This was the only set that Cook and Grove dropped as they won all the others to take the runners-up spot in the group.

Odiham’s Jeremy Hillage and Hugo Riveros finished in third place by winning three of their five sets, closely followed by Andover duo Trevor Blake and Jeff Lill.

The other pair in the group was Dave Burrell and George White (BDH) who fought hard and came close in a couple of sets, with Burrell playing his first competitive tennis for some considerable time after injury.

In the other group, the new pairing of Seward and Wise ran out the group winners by winning all of their sets, although they were taken to 6-5 by group runners-up Dixon and Mole.

In third place after winning two of their four sets were Goodworth Clatford pair Richard Hancock and Geoff Mulhern and on the same number of points were Waverley’s Perveez Mirza and Tony Vanderslott.

Completing the group were Eric McCann (Overton) and Andy Wallace (BDH) who were as competitive as ever but found the opposition too strong on this occasion.