Bucks U18 girls 2nd place Group 2 Aegon County Cup - superb fight & spirit over the 3days
Full results:
http://lta.tournamentsoftware.com/sport/draw.aspx?id=50E3AF83-28F1-4C0F-809C-9BF9E831A484&draw=1
Aegon U18 County Cup
Girls Group 2, Gosling 2014
The County Cup event is such an important part of British Tennis and it is a vital event to keep players in the game, especially girls. To be in a team, cheering each other on, playing for your teammates, representing your county, having support and learning from your captain at the change of ends is why it makes this event so important. For any players looking to play US college tennis this is the perfect setting to see what it is all about. County week, Aegon Team tennis, UK University tennis, club teams are all team events which our players will be better team players because of County Cup.
Annie Westermann has kindly written a very creative report.
At Gosling Sports Park, Hertfordshire, the Bucks U18’s girls were virtually on home turf: we were feeling confident, even at 6am on a Friday morning... Great names like Georgie “The Assassin” Sanders, Alice “Pinpoint” Patch, Lauren “The Ice Woman” Armstrong, Lauren “Sparkey” King-Sparke, Natasha “Burier” Bierrum, Beth “Ball Machine” Marriott, Hannah “Rottweiler” Russell and Annie “The Wise” Westermann were all under one roof for two nights only, led to glory by Jemima “Killer” King.
Down to business straight away: Following a quick game of orange, volleyball tennis, Natasha and Beth, as 5 and 6, commenced the battle against Nottinghamshire. With straight sets wins in these first two matches, things were looking promising. However, Nottinghamshire were strong at the top and clawed back 3 singles to leave us equal at 3-3. It was all down to the doubles.
Georgie and Alice, “the Dream Team”; Lauren and Annie, “the Destroyers” and Beth and Hannah, “the Magicians” descended all 12 steps to court as hitting happened. Jemima’s killer concentration on doubles at county training helped contribute to the fact that Bucks WON ALL THREE in straight sets! The first day and Nottingham were defeated 6-3. We could eat at Pizza Express happy.
The sun rose in the East as we had a more eastern county to play on Saturday, Essex. Beth decided that there were more pressing matters to attend to on the hockey field, so Hannah “Rottweiler” Russell instead roared onto court and into a terrifyingly tight first set to unfortunately lose 7,5. Natasha also played well but the Essex girl could not stop skimming those lines! Lauren won a Sparktacular set in her singles, to then be marginalised by Goliath 5,7 6,4 6,1.
‘The only way is winning’ for Lauren A as she breezed coolly through yet another match. Even this was not without struggle as Lauren found herself 5,2 down in the first set. However, her cool cucumber in her tennis bag snug beside the foam cylinder would not let her lose her straight sets streak, but “the Ice Woman” did not want to show any affection, even to a vegetable. Being a team effort, Jemima’s stroke of the cucumber instead had the same effect and Lauren steamrolled through the next 5 games to win 7,5. The match of the day had to be from Georgie. She won the first set comfortably 6,2, gave a false sense of security by losing the set 6,4, only to “assassinate” her opponent at her most vulnerable in the third set 6,4.
We were 4-2 down in rubbers, but winning all 3 doubles would leave us victorious over Essex. Could Bucks do it?
No.
As with all county cups, Sunday stormed in far too quickly. Kent, the eager morning warmer-uppers and probable group champions, were our foes for the day. Beth obviously charged her “ball machine” all of the night before because her first match was turbo. Blocking her opponent like a great wall, Beth won the first set 6,4. The batteries ran a little flat in the second, only to rejuvenate themselves in the third set, but not quite enough to counter the opponent’s momentum. (To demonstrate relative times, whilst this went on, Natasha and Lauren K-S had completed both their matches.) Oh well.
Unfortunately a victory was not quite “pinpointed” but both “The Ice Woman” and “The Assassinator” again were eager for the “50% extra fitness” bonus with their three setters. Georgie just lost out but no need to mention who won the 5th consecutive match on their U18’s Bucks debut.
Unfortunately, being 5-1 down, we had no chance of even the doubles saving us this time, but the majority Halton players still wanted ‘everyball’. “The Magicians”, Hannah and Beth, could not quite pull the rabbit out of the hat as they did on Friday. “The Destroyers”, Lauren and Annie, were up next. With Extreme Net Jumping and Lauren’s lucky cucumber, the pair were unstoppable. They destroyed everything in their path, even one of the opponent’s wrist, forcing her to retire the match at 6,3 3,2 (to Bucks, obviously). The destruction seemed to continue to the whole of the Kent team as they renounced the final match to The Dream Team. We took a group picture and went home.
Either JJ’s green pompoms, Lauren’s irremovable foot on the pedal or our abstinence from clubbing set us 2 rubbers above the Essex girls in the end to leave us in 2nd place, safely in Group 2 for another year. (We thought it would be nice to let the boys feel like equals at least once.)
‘I am very proud of all the girls, they all brought energy, enthusiasm, spirit and passion to the weekend. Everyone brought something to the team and we showed our dominance on the doubles courts winning 6 out of 8 doubles. A great result to come 2nd and we look forward to coming back stronger next year’. ‘Jemima King, Captain.
GO BUCKS!!! J