The Cambridgeshire U12 boys had to settle for 3rd place in a rain interrupted weekend at the county cup play offs as Hertfordshire came top.
Without GB”s number 1 Harry Wendelken for the weekend, it was left to Derrick Chen (Saturday), Vicente Castillo, Ethan Lee and James Murphy (Sunday) to get Cambs to the finals.
Playing Norfolk and Hertfordshire on the Saturday, Cambs got off to a great start with singles wins for Derrick Chen and Ethan Lee while Vicente Castillo lost in a match tiebreak.
However, Chen and Castillo teamed up for the doubles to make a Cambs win by 3-1.
Herts, who were now favourites for the group once Wendelken was unavailable got off to a good start as Yasha Puli beat Cambs no 3 Ethan Lee 4-2 4-1, while Vicente went down 2-4 1-4 to George Carter. It was left to Derrick to keep the tie alive but he couldn't and went down in a very hard fought match 3-5 5-4 (3).
The doubles was played with a win for Lee and Castillo who beat the reserves Elias Ghebru and Yashi Puli. It meant that Cambs couldn't qualify unless Herts lost to another team.
The Sunday was affected by the rain and it meant that all matches were shortened to match tiebreaks and no doubles was played.
Playing Suffolk, Ethan Lee went down 8-10 to Haadi Shaah and Castillo lost 1-10 to Travis Ireland while James Murphy won 11-9 against Zvonko Bencedic. Last up was Bedfordshire, and Cambs finished off with a win. Lee and Castillo both winning while Murphy lost to Bedfordshire’s number 1. Again no doubles was played.
It was unfortunate that the weather affected Sunday’s play but Cambs finished 3rd overall behind Herts who were group winners and Suffolk.