Avon's U9 Oranage ball team competed at the weekend indoors at Taunton Tennis Centre.
The team were Sean Helstrip, J'Quorn-DuVall-Richards, Ijaaz Van Den Bos, Lola Winter-Smith, Aryana Bartlett and Edie Hammond.
The team looked very solid and captains Craig Stock and Martyn Bray looked forward to watching a competitive days tennis.
Each team would play each other in a Round Robin format and each match comprised of 6 singles, hence 3 boys and 3 girls singles, a boys and a girls doubles and a mixed doubles to finish and what potentially could decide the result between any team , eg 5-4 .
Avon were set to play Cornwall, Devon, Somerset and Dorset.
Being a County Cup event, coaches were allowed on court at the change of ends , as each match comprised of best of 3 sets and sets up to 7 points .
Avon started off strongly in all matches and by the time they came to play Dorset, arguably the strongest team, we had not lost a singles rubber. Our girls had competed well , most being a year young for this event, whilst the boys fought off some tough opponents to win all 3 of their matches which could have gone either way!
We set out against Dorset expecting them to match us throughout. All matches were very competitively fought and although we could have possibly lost all the singles; we had a little good fortune, but more importantly played some great spirited tennis to come out on top 5-1 up after singles, helped on by some vocal encouragement from coaches and parents ...a really great team effort.
So winning all 4 matches 5-1 or 6-0 before doubles meant we had already deservedly won the group, hence doubles was played in a fun and relaxed environment, although unfortunately not all completed, due to the event not finishing until 6pm.
Craig Stock said “All our players showed great commitment and fight throughout their matches. With us only losing one game in our four matches we had a fantastic day. The players were very well behaved and professional from the warm up to the presentation. Well done to all the players and thank you to all the parents for their support”