After the efforts of the team in the qualifying, the team was raring to go and team morale was high going into the finals this weekend in Bolton. With Jennifer Rees unfortunately unavailable for selection, Holly Mellors stepped into an otherwise unchanged team.
As one of the unseeded teams for the first round, we were drawn against one of the favourites for the title, Middlesex. With Middlesex having such good strength in depth, our singles line up of Alice, Holly and Amy were up against it from the start and could do little to contain the power of the opposition despite their best efforts and determination. In the doubles, Alice and Etianna competed well but unfortunately went down to a very strong doubles partnership.
Next up were Avon, where we decided to bring in Etianna for the singles matches. Alice had the task of attempting to tame a girl twice her size, hitting some huge shots from the back of the court. On this occasion she couldn’t quite come up with the answers but put in a brave display eventually going down 4-1 4-1. Holly competed well but went down against a player who gave little free points away, and Etianna fought well before going down in straight sets. With Amy and Holly teaming up bidding to get the first points on the board, they played some good positive doubles and took the match into a match tie-break. Unfortunately they couldn’t quite carry the momentum gained from winning the second set through to the end which meant Notts would take on West of Scotland on the final day to compete for 7th position.
First up was Alice, who came up against a player who liked to dictate a lot of the play. Fortunately, Alice played a smart match and gave a good solid baseline performance to draw the errors from her Scottish opponent to give us just the start we needed and go 1-0 up, the first points of the weekend!
Next came Amy, who showed her variety and ability to come forwards to finish at the net to ask many questions of her opponent. Unfortunately, her opponent played well on the big points and was able to close the match out 4-2 4-2. Up came Etianna in a match that turned out to be an epic, lots of long rallies and the match could have easily gone either way. It seemed our luck was out this weekend and despite Etianna giving it her all, she went down in the match tie-break 10-5. On to the doubles where the Scottish pair put on a very solid display of tennis and took the match in convincing style.
Overall after a tough weekend on court, the girls fought hard and gave it their all. We did incredibly well to make it through to the finals and we can have pride in knowing that we are the 8th best team in the country this year, and undoubtedly, number one for team spirit!
A pleasure to captain this team, with a big thanks to the parents for bringing the girls along and making my job very easy, roll on next year!
Callum Chivers
Pictured here are the team, from left to right
Amy Harrold-Vaux,
Etianna Whitaker,
Alice Hill (lower),
Holly Mellors with
Callum Chivers (Capt)