The last weekend of June saw Oxfordshire’s top 12&U boys and girls compete in the LTA County Cup with the Boys at North Oxford Tennis Club (Summertown) and the girls at Oxford Sports (Botley)
Both teams started off playing the pre-event favourites, Middlesex and both teams suffered 8-0 defeats. The Girls then suffered an 8-0 defeat to Buckinghamshire (who’s number 1 played number 1 for a winning GB side last week) so were competing against much higher ranked players. The boys however, played against The Channel Islands, and won 8-0 boosting their confidence for day 2.
Day 2 saw both teams kick off against local rivals Berkshire. After the singles the boys were 4-2 up and needed to win the doubles to beat Berkshire. They did so with Oxfordshire’s 1 and 2, Ned Batstone and Louis Manson, winning 5-4, 4-0. The boys were now looking at a top half finish. The girls were 4-2 down against Berkshire in after the singles, despite a great win for Holly Sheeran-Hall playing at three. The girls needed to win the doubles to tie the match and go to a shoot-out. Top pair of Saffy Gujral and Laila Zugic were overwhelmed at start with Berkshire pair winning the first set 4-1, but rallied to take the second set 4-2. In the final set, Oxfordshire had 6 match points before winning 13-11. With the match tied, the same girls now had to play another 10 point tie-break to decide a winner. Oxfordshire took an early lead and had a couple of match points but finally succumbed 16-14. After an 8-0 defeat to Essex, this left Oxfordshire girls bottom of the group. Team Captain Liz Bamber said ‘the girls without exception were a credit to the County and I feel they gained so much experience from the weekend’
The boys now needed to defeat Essex to finish second. After the singles, they were 2-1 up with wins at 1 and 3 for Louis Manson and Guy Mobey. Ben Charlesworth and Guy Mobey were charged to win the tie by winning the doubles but lost an incredibly tight match 5-4(3) 4-5(3) 10-6. Another shoot out with scores 4-4. Louis and Ned stepped up and won it to give Oxfordshire a fantastic second place finish.
Read the boys captains report
Read the girls captains report