All the girls were on great form leaving on Thursday night to head up to Nottingham for the finals; Connie Simpson, Lucy Edwards, Zulaikha Van Den Bos, Hannah Thomas and Emily Thomas. Natasha you were mentioned a great deal and missed!!!
Day 1, Friday 15th May we played our first opponents Middlesex. We had an exciting start finding an invasion of spiders in the van, or as the girls suggested it looked like overnight the spiders gave birth! It was a tough start but Lucy gave us a win at number 2. We went into the doubles positive and both pairings played very well with great fighting spirit but sadly resulting in a 5-1 loss. Middlesex went on to lose in the final against Surrey.
Day 1 then continued with singles play against the next opponent Buckinghamshire. Another tough opponent who came 4th overall. The girls did brilliantly with wins at 4, 3, and 2 with Lucy facing a very tough opponent at 1. Zulaikha at 2 had a standout performance competing hard and fighting throughout for her team which ended a late finishing first day! We were really proud of the girls to see them all fighting for points and not giving up. A real team effort.
Day 2 began with the doubles against Bucks. The girls battled hard again but sadly came away with 2 losses. This resulted in a shoot-out doubles. Lucy and Zulaikha went on with a great attitude and played fantastic positive tennis but eventually lost 12-10 in the tie break. The girls were fantastic but also learned a lot to bring back next year!!
Our final box opponents were Sussex. The girls had a strong start with wins at 4, 2, and 1. The doubles then followed and both pairs getting into a third set tie break. Our 2’s lost but competed well and the 1’s got us our win for the first overall team win and allowing them to play off for 5th/6th place nationally. The girls did brilliantly after their play was stopped on Saturday due to the facility closing and then had to come back early on Day 3 to in fact finish this match. Not easy to maintain concentration and we were very proud of them to get their first team win of the weekend!
Day 3 was our final opponents Lancashire. All the girls competed hard with a few girls saving several match points before sadly going down to a 4-0 defeats in singles. They had to go on to the doubles knowing they had lost, and we had a 6-0 loss to end the weekend. 6th place overall nationally was a great achievement and with most of the team still playing U14 next year it should be another exciting year in 2016!!! Well done girls, you were a pleasure, you all learned to fight even when playing tough opponents and being down and we are excited to see you improve over the next year and go back for more in 2016!!
Captains: Elly Shearman/Thaddea Lock