CANON Slade were a smash hit in the national schools tennis finals when they served up their best-ever performance in the event.

The boys' team were third in the LTA Senior Students Competition, with another team from the Bolton school finishing seventh in the mixed doubles.

Canon Slade have made it through to the national finals in previous years but have never had a team finish as high as third.

The competition is largely dominated by independent and boarding schools who have excellent facilities, so just to qualify for the finals is difficult, and to have two teams get there is a special achievement in itself.

The Bradshaw school did have one advantage in that the finals were staged locally at Bolton Arena.

The boys' team only lost to the eventual winners, Magdalen College, 15-13 in a tie-break shootout.

At one stage they were 9-4 behind, but managed to pull it back to 10-9 and had match point. That was the only match they did not win, and had they done so they would have qualified for the final.

Canon Slade had two of the top three best performing players in the finals – Will Hart, who was first, and Matt Bowers, who was third.

The mixed doubles team had a tough draw which meant they had to play reigning champions Millfield, number one seeds Culford, and Strathallan who won the boys', girls' and mixed doubles titles in 2015.

They beat Strathallan before giving the other two teams close games.