Berkshire Over 35 ladies travelled to Eastbourne for the annual County tournament with a team of 6 players, and despite withdrawals of 2 players through injury in the lead up to the weekend, the team were in positive mood. The team consisted of Gill Galloway (captain) Katharine Pike, Sarah Baker, Carol Hewson (all Caversham LTC) Heather Bates (nee Matthews) (Virgin Active) and Vanessa Wait (Wokingham TC)
After promotion last year from Division 5, and strengthened by the addition of youngster Heather Bates the team were looking forward to playing in Div 4. Their first match was against local team Bucks who were captained by Cavershams Susie Woodman (nee Hall). After a delayed start due to rain, the No 2 singles began proceedings. After losing the first set, Katharine found her rhythm and got control of the wind to win the 2nd set and take the match to a deciding 10-point match tie-break. The tie-break was very close but Katharine managed to find a way to win 11-9. Heather was up next in the top singles against Susie and Heather proved too strong and able to handle the wind to give Berks a 2-0 lead. Skipper Gill and Sarah won their doubles against the Bucks doubles pair who followed that by losing to Heather and Katharine to give Berks a 4-0 lead. In the final match of the day, Gill sat out to give Vanessa her first taste of grass play this year, and the chance for Sarah and Vanessa to play together. Bucks also changed their team and they came out on top for a consolation win.
Day 2 saw sunshine and more wind and followed a similar pattern against Hampshire. Katharine and Heather won in straight sets in their singles before Gill and Sarah again won the doubles. In their doubles Heather and Katharine started slowly (well, that's being polite, they were 4-0 down in no time) before getting their act together to win 6-4 6-0. Vanessa and Sarah teamed up again but this time changed sides and played well to secure a 5-0 whitewash against Hants.
Day 3 again started with rain and a delayed start meaning teams with a distance to travel home were eager just to get a result. Berkshire with 2 wins were playing Shropshire with 2 defeats and once play was underway at midday Katharine looked good in wining the first set. However a change of tactics by her opponent saw her win the 2nd set to set up a match tiebreak. Katharine stepped up her play to win the tiebreak convincingly much to the disappointment of her opponent who had lost all 3 singles matches on tiebreak deciders!! With Heather having to return home, Berks skipper Gill took on the challenge of playing at No 1 singles and won comfortably before Sarah and Vanessa won the doubles. A 3-0 win gave Berks the match and Carol was looking forward to finally getting some doubles action as "super-sub" but Shropshire were not keen to play the final 2 matches as they had a long journey home.
3 wins out of 3 saw Berkshire win the division and secure promotion to Div 3 next year. With only 1 rubber dropped over the 3 matches this was a convincing performance from the team. There is some talk of this competition format changing for next year but Berkshire are keen to retain the format as it is an enjoyable weekend and they now seem to have found a winning formula with back-to-back promotions. Youngsters coming through like Heather really make a difference, but Vanessa thinks she can take the credit as she has now played for 2 years and been Champion in both years!!!.
Many thanks to Berkshire skipper Gill Galloway for organising a great team and well played to all the players. Let's hope we can make it a hat-trick of wins next year.