Felix Dean and Sophie Price won the prestigious County Mini Red Tournament to start the year off in winning ways.
The Annual Winter County Mini Red Tournament attracted most of the top 8 and under players in the County on Saturday 5th January and the matches were extremely well contested and of an encouraging standard for the future of Cambridgeshire tennis.
Players initially played in groups with the winner and runner up in each group progressing to the quarter finals. Each match was a tiebreak to 10 points and two points clear.
Top seed Felix Dean progressed relatively easily through his group, while second seed Charlie Adams lost to Lucas Summers in his group but both went through. Dougie McKee upset Tenison Prempeh in his group while Ted Hope was pushed all the way by Connor Redpath.
The quarter finals then saw Felix Dean beat Connor Redpath 10/6; Dougie McKee beat Charlie Adams 10/2; Ted Hope beat Flynn Kewney 14/12 in a really high quality game and Tenison Prempeh beat Lucas Summers 11/9. In the semi-finals Felix Dean beat Dougie McKee 10/7 and Ted Hope beat Tenison Prempeh 10/5. The final was the best of three tiebreaks to 10 and in a fluctuating and very well contested match, the slightly older Felix Dean eventually overcame Ted Hope 10/7, 5/10, 10/7.
In the girls event the top two girls Sophie Price and Alexandra Pitchford easily won their groups. In the semi-finals Sophie Price beat Sammy Borcoski 10/7 and Alexandra Pitchford beat the very young, promising, 6 year old Sophie Tjurina 10/1. In the final Sophie Price beat Alexandra 10/8 in an exciting final.
Both the winner and runner up in each event will go on to represent Cambridgeshire in the Inter County Mini Red Event on 17th February at Gosling.
Referee Sue Rich said ‘ It was an excellent event with some really high quality matches in the boys but there were two very young girls 5 and 6 year olds, Marennah and Sophie who also show good promise for the future. Everyone tried very hard and competed in a fair but competitive manner.