In the recent LTA Winter County Cup both of Berkshire’s teams had some encouraging performances. Pride of place went to the Men who comfortably dominated their Group with 3 wins out of 3 & were therefore promoted to Group 2 for 2013.
For a change they were at full strength with circuit players Neil Pauffley, Marcus Willis & James Ireland all available ably supported by regulars Rob Green, Andy Hamer, Kieran Muir & Robert Flynn. Consequently they were much too strong for Suffolk by 8-1,West of Scotland 9-0 and Leicestershire 5-1.
In contrast the Ladies in Group 4 were understrength on the first day losing 4-5 to Avon which in the end proved decisive. However they recovered with their stronger players on day 2 beating Leicestershire 5-4 and then Hereford & Worcs on day 3 by 8-1 to finish joint second. Claire Powell had the best results of the weekend with 5 wins out of 6 whilst overall the most encouraging feature was that the Ladies won 8 out of 9 doubles which augurs well for the LTA Summer all-doubles event.