Lionel Cox 2012 – 10&Under Team:
Lara Hill, Hannah Krasner, Darcey Roe, Alexa Wilson, Ben Smith, Matthew Blood, Dylan Smith
The Bucks under 10 team travelled to Queenswood for the weekend of 5/6 May in confident mood for the annual Lionel Cox trophy. With several of our players aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the other teams from meeting some of them in tournaments, it bode well ahead of the event.
The girls’ team had Lara Hill playing on the Saturday, with Alexa Wilson coming in to replace her on the Sunday due to Lara’s unavailability. The boys’ team remained the same as the one that did so well at the under 9 county cup last summer.
The Saturday proved to be the more challenging of the weekend. The weather was cold, windy and over cast and the players found it hard to adjust to the conditions. The girls had a tough start to the competition with a straight rubber loss to a very strong Suffolk side, while the boys managed to defeat Bedfordshire 2-1 after hard-fought wins from Matt and Dylan.
With another 2-1 win, this time over local rivals Herts, the boys knew a win over Suffolk on the Sunday morning would put them in the final. The girls managed to get a good win over Northants by this time, with lessons learned from their first match – using the weather conditions to better affect by taking the ball earlier. By now Darcey was playing her best tennis after a last minute racket crisis on the Friday night! A good win for her here, as well as battling performances from Hannah and Lara increased confidence going into the Sunday.
Boys number 1 Ben had been very unfortunate to lose match tiebreaks on the Saturday, but he raised his game the next day. He produced his best display so far in the boy’s victory over Suffolk, where Matt and Dylan continued their good form. By now the boys were really playing aggressively – using the court space more intelligently, and crucially increasing their first serve percentage.
Alexa came in for Lara on the Sunday, where the girls found it tough against a Herts team with arguably the strongest players. However, our girls took heart from positive displays that helped them to a fine win over Bedfordshire to secure 5th place overall.
The climax of the boys’ weekend would be the title decider against Essex; undoubtedly the best team they’d faced so far. Dylan narrowly lost his rubber despite taking it to the match tie break and playing a great defensive game. Matt powered through his rubber to remain undefeated for the weekend which left the result hinging on Ben’s match.
A magnificent contest resulted in yet another match tie break where despite being down 2-0 having lost a draining second set, Ben came through to take it 10-5 sparking mass celebration in the Bucks camp!
Huge credit goes to the team for their efforts. It inspired great confidence ahead of the County Cup in June.
Team Captain - Tom Edis