Cambridgeshire’s girls and boys team of Natasha Scott, Chaaya Malik, Sama Malik, Harry Wendelken, James Murphy and Nik Ayhaee narrowly lost out in the 9 and under County Cup at Culford School on Saturday 16th July finishing a very good third. The 9 and under County Cup consisted of the Counties of Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. Each County had a team of three girls and three boys and each match consisted of three boys singles, three girls singles, one boys doubles, one girls doubles and one mixed doubles. Each match was the best of three tie breaks to seven points. All the singles matches were played first and then all the doubles.
Cambridgeshire’s first match was against Bedfordshire and the boys got off to a good start with Harry Wendelken at number one and James Murphy at number two both winning their singles. Nik Ahyaee narrowly lost his match but then the number one girl Natasha Scott won her match, Chaaya Malik lost at number two but sister Sama Malik at number three won her match to leave Cambs 4 – 2 up after the singles.
Cambridgeshire then played against Suffolk and again the boys performed well with Harry Wendelken wining 7/5, 7/4, James Murphy lost 4/7, 3/7 but Nik Ahyaee played a good match to win 7/5, 6/7, 7/5. The top two girls lost but Sama Malik had a good win 7/2, 6/7, 7/2 to ensure Cambs were level at 3 matches each after the singles.
The third match was against Norfolk and the boys played very well to win all their singles. Harry won 4/7, 7/6, 7/4; James won 7/5, 7/1 and Nik won 7/1, 7/5. The girls were outclassed by some very good Norfolk players and all lost so again the match was level at 3 matches all!
In the last match against Northants Harry won 7/5, 6/7, 7/2; James lost a very close three setter and Nik won in three sets 6/7, 7/4, 7/5. Natasha lost at number one but Chaaya won 7/6, 7/5 and Sama won 7/4, 7/4 to give Cambs a 4 -2 lead.
Next up were all the doubles, firstly against Bedfordshire - Harry and James won 7/4, 7/2 and then Natasha and Chaaya won 7/2, 7/5 Nik and Sama lost a close mixed 6/7, 6/7 but Cambs came out on top 6 matches to 3.
The match against Suffolk was nail biting as Nik and Sama won the mixed 7/1, 7/6 but both the boys and then girls doubles just lost so Cambs ended up 4 matches to 5 down.
The Norfolk match was again very close, the boys won 6/7, 7/5, 7/3, mixed lost and then Natasha and Chaaya narrowly lost 6/7, 5/7 – another close match where Cambs ended up 4 matches to 5 down.
The final match against Northants saw all three doubles pairs win and Cambs ended up 7matches to 2 winners.
Harry Wendelken won all four singles and three of his four doubles; James Murphy won 5 matches; Nik Ahyaee won 5 matches; Natasha Scott won 3 matches; Chaaya Malik won 3 matches and Sama Malik won 5 matches. Overall Captain Sue Rich said ‘ All the team played very well and with a little luck we could have won all the games – the group was that close. Well done to all the team’.