The Isle of Man 45-and-over national tennis team had what can only be described as a strange 2025 campaign.

The team of four - made up of captain Neil Ronan, Rob Mason, Nerijus Gricevicius and Jos Woolford was scheduled to play Cornwall and Hampshire at home and Devon and Warwickshire away.

Things did not pan out quite as planned though. With the team travelling to Devon, Cornwall jumped in to play the team on the same weekend. Communication from Warwickshire proved to be difficult and then Hampshire withdrew. This meant that the team only completed two fixtures.

The weekend started with the match against Cornwall. At first singles Gricevicius got the team off to the perfect start with a 6-1, 6-2 win against Jim Watkins.

Woolford at second singles had a tougher time against the very awkward Andy Phillips. With both sets very close, they could have gone either way but Woolford held his nerve to win 7-6, 6-4

In the first of three doubles, Ronan and Mason played some of their best tennis against Andrew Watkins and Derek Buist. An almost faultless display meant they did not drop a game, winning flawlessly 6-0, 6-0.

Ronan and Mason continued their good form, playing against Cornwall’s two singles players, Jim Watkins and Phillips. They again took the match in two sets, this time 6-3, 6-1.

In the final doubles Gricevicius and Woolford combined well to beat Andrew Watkins and Buist, again in two sets 6-0, 6-2. Overall, a really good start to the weekend for the team with a 5-0 win.

There was a much tougher challenge for the team on day two against Devon.

At first singles Gricevicius was always going to be up against it against the highly rated Bruce Wheatley. Gricevicius really struggled to get into the game, with Wheatley dominating 6-0, 6-0.

Second singles saw Woolford take on the very unorthodox Rory Haries but the Isle of Man player could not quite convert the key points and in the end lost out 3-6, 4-6.

Ronan and Mason had to win the first doubles to give the Isle of Man team any hope of victory. This they did with a 6-4, 7-6 win over Rud Sawers and Dion Newcombe.

In their second doubles, Ronan and Mason did not fair quite so well, losing out to Wheatley and Haries 1-6, 3-6.

The final match was between Gricevicius and Woolford versus Sawers and Newcombe. The Manx pairing lost the first set 4-6, then at 3-5 down in the second set they saved two match points to turn it round to win the tie break 7-4.

Then, with momentum on their side, they won the third set 10-7 which gave a narrow 3-2 victory to Devon.

This meant that the team was holding on to a very good second place in the division but unfortunately, as a result of having to concede the final match against Warwickshire, it handed Warwickshire a 5-0 win and also a three-point deduction for the Isle of Man team. This unfortunately put the island side at the bottom of the table.