Profiles of top ladies real tennis players
Claire Fahey
Claire is the top rated (handicap) lady player in the world and the only one with a single figure handicap, her best being 2.4. In 2011, Claire became the youngest ever World Champion at the age of 19, winning the singles and also the doubles with her sister Sarah. Claire has won 37 Ladies Open Singles Championships and 35 Ladies Open Doubles Championships. She won both a Singles and doubles Grand Slam in 2010, 2012, 2014 & 2017 and a Singles Grand Slam in 2011. Claire (with husband Rob) has won the Premier National League (twice) and the Tasmanian & Victorian Doubles Open 2011.
Claire turned professional in 2011. She spent time training at Lord’s Club & Royal Melbourne Real Tennis Club. She joined Holyport Real Tennis Club as the Senior Professional in September 2014, before moving to Prested Hall Real Tennis (with husband, Rob) in November 2016. In 2014 Claire made history playing in the Opens with her male competitors,
with a rule change to allow players acceptance to the tournaments based on standard rather than sex. A huge change in the rules, which saw Claire play first in the British Open 2014, shortly followed by Australian Open 2015, US Open 2015 and latterly, French Open 2016. In her Open tournaments, she won through 2 opening rounds and made a US Open Doubles semi-final.
In September 2020 Claire (and Rob) joined moved to Woodcote, Claire taking up a new role as Head of Racquets at The Oratory School (whilst Rob is Head Professional of The Oratory Real Tennis Club). A perfect partnership between school and real tennis, now sees the Real Tennis court busier than ever and Real Tennis a very popular school sport. Claire manages to keep up her busy training and playing schedule around her school commitments and is kept even busier by Sophie (6) & Freddie (4), both of whom seem to already enjoy Real Tennis.
Lea Van Der Zwalmen
Lea started playing squash in Toulouse, France, at the age of eight and went on to play both for club and country. Highlights of her junior career include captaining the under 19 women’s French team during the World Junior Championships in 2013 and winning the under 19 National French Championships in 2015. She has now switched her focus to the original rackets sports games of Rackets and Real Tennis. She is the current ladies Rackets World Champion, a title she has held since 2015, and is ranked number two in the world at Real Tennis. Since taking up Real Tennis at the Queen’s Club in June 2017, Lea has won The Queen’s Club Ladies Championships twice and consistently made at least the finals of various prestigious tournaments, her biggest achievement to date is perhaps climbing up the ranking from world number 16 in November 2017 to number two by August 2018 in a record time of just under ten months.
Lea is now living down in Bordeaux since September 2020. She has been juggling work as a product owner in the IT Consulting business with her various commitments as a top real tennis player and chairwoman of the Bordeaux club. Lea had a great 2022/23 season, capturing the French Open Doubles title for the first time with Saskia Bollerman and finishing runner-up in the singles and doubles of the Ladies World Championships in the UK.
Tara Lumley
Tara grew up playing at Holyport while her mother trained
to retain her world championship title! She used to play every Sunday morning with her brother and father from the age of 3.
Her biggest achievement in Real Tennis was winning the LRTA
International in 2018 and holding the World Real Tennis Doubles and World Rackets Doubles titles simultaneously!
Saskia Bollerman
Saskia started playing Real Tennis because her father is a tennis historian and 30 years ago he read that Real Tennis still exists. His squash partner grew up at Hayling Island and took a small Dutch group to Seacourt and that’s how the Dutch started playing. Jonathan Howell told her parents to start an association and come, stay and play at the Oratory. That’s how the annual Dutch championships came alive!
Her best achievement in Real Tennis (apart from being a Dutch champion) is winning the US Open Singles and Doubles in 2017, French Open Doubles 2017, 2022 and Australian Open Doubles 2016, 2017, 2018, 2023 and Singles 2023.
Nicola Doble
Retiring from competitive badminton aged 25, Nicola discovered real tennis and with the introduction of a ladies’ Bathurst Cup in 2022, is delighted to have represented GB at both sports. As a secondary school teacher, it can be very tricky to find time to fit in training sessions, so she is extremely grateful to her training partner Martin and coach Nick for the amount of times they have dragged themselves out of bed and onto court for 6am to practise with her before school. When she’s not on court or solving tricky maths problems, she is happiest on stage.
Penny Lumley
Penny has been playing competitively for nearly 40 years and even though she has threatened to retire on numerous occasions she still won’t go away! Her love for the game is obviously strong and she can’t help herself dusting off the racket and getting back on court to compete, although this surely must be the last World Championship that she’ll enter!
Georgie Willis
Georgie started playing as a junior at Seacourt: her Dad heard about the game and got her and her siblings involved. She started taking the game more seriously when she was at Oxford University as she was able to play more frequently. Her biggest Real Tennis achievement was making the British Open semi- final and getting a Real Tennis Full Blue from Oxford.
Jess Garside
Jess has been playing real tennis since the age of 6. She was introduced to the game by her parents, who both met through the sport. She was quite literally on court before she left the womb, as her mother was busy setting some big footsteps for her to follow. Jess grew up playing at Seacourt Tennis Club, under the eyes of Dan Jones & Adam Player. As a junior, she competed in and won various national titles. After finishing her university degree, Jess spent 3 months in Australia, where she spent most of her time at Hobart Real Tennis Club, followed by the Royal Melbourne Tennis Club. She reached her best standard of tennis during this time. Nowadays, alongside a full time job in football, Jess loves to compete in as many of the international tournaments as possible. She reached the doubles final in all four women’s Opens and hopes to take home one of these titles in the future! Most recently, she represented Team GB in the Women’s Bathurst Cup.
Irina Dulbish
Irina graduated from Middlesex University with a BA in Magazine Publishing where she naturally joined a Lawn Tennis team. She was then introduced to real tennis in her second year at the University and in her final year MURTC offered Irina an internship. After graduating Irina was then offered a scholarship at MCC, spending a year training and coaching. During that time she competed in various tournaments including the Opens, collecting a few titles along the way. Throughout the years there have been many finals, but the titles are the ones we will always remember!
Since around 2017 Irina has been playing Real Tennis more sporadically and playing a bit more Lawn Tennis but she still enjoys the wonderful game of Real Tennis when the opportunity arises, be it playing or spectating. She is one way, or another always surrounded by racket sports, even at work!
