LAW firm Gotelee & Goldsmith is again sponsoring the East of England International Lawn Tennis Championships, which are hosted annually by Felixstowe Tennis Club.

LAW firm Gotelee & Goldsmith is again sponsoring the East of England International Lawn Tennis Championships, which are hosted annually by Felixstowe Tennis Club.

This year's championships - the fifth to be sponsored by Ipswich-based Gotelee & Goldsmith - take place next week from July 7 to 13 and have, as usual, attracted a strong entry including many up-and-coming players from around the world.

Top seed for the US$25,000 Ladies' event is British number five Naomi Cavaday who has reached the world's top 200 in her first full year as a senior and, after beating top 50 player Jill Craybas at Edgbaston early last month, also made an impression in the first round at Wimbledon last week by taking defending champion Venus Williams to a tie-break before going down in straight sets.

The British presence in the Ladies' tournament also includes Sarah Borwell, who is seeded fourth, and Amanda Elliott, an 18-year-old who won through qualifying at Edgbaston, while the international contingent includes Neuza Silva of Portugal, losing finalist at Felixstowe last year and seeded second this time, Irena Pavlovic of France, Nikola Hofmanova of Austria and Ksenia Lykina of Russia.

In the Men's US$15,000 competition, the top seed is Britain's Joshua Goodall, winner of the Felixstowe event two years ago, and the draw also includes 20-year-old Chris Eaton, the new name in British tennis who qualified and won a first round at Wimbledon against Serbia's Boris Pashanski, who was ranked more than 600 places higher.

Also entered in the Men's event are Pavel Chekhov of Russia, Australian quartet Adam Feeney, Brydan Klein, Greg Jones and Matthew Ebden, Jeremy Blandin of France, Enrico Iannuzzi of Italy, Michel Koning of the Netherlands and Harsh Mankad of India.

The main draws starts on Tuesday, July 10, with qualifying on the previous days, and culminates with the singles semi-finals and doubles finals on Saturday, July 12 and the singles finals on Sunday, July 13. Play starts daily at 10.30am, except for the last two days when the start will be at 12noon.

To provide a further boost for tennis at “grass roots” level, this year's championships also include the inaugural Gotelee & Goldsmith East of England Schools Invitation Challenge Cup, giving students a chance to take part in a prestigious competition as well as watching and - for the lucky ones - getting to practice with the professionals.

More than 30 schools have been invited to send a maximum of eight students, consisting of two boys and two girls aged 13 and under and two boys and two girls aged 15 and under.