Cambridgeshire’s girls 12 and under team of Natasha Scott, Sama Malik, Chaaya Malik and Megan Carmichael travelled to Hertford and were up against it at County Cup facing the more experienced teams of Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk.
Despite some hard fought matches and encouraging doubles play they were unable to secure any overall wins. Individually there were some good performances.
Each match consists of 3 singles and 2 doubles and should the scores be level at 2 matches each then a tie break shoot out is played!
On the Saturday they faced Norfolk in the singles. Natasha Scott faced the very promising Monica Raviraj and despite battling hard was out played and lost 1/4, 0/4. Next up was number two Sama Malik who played a good match against Emily Barrett and won 4/0, 5/3 with a tight second set. Chaaya Malik then took on Megan Waghorn and won 5/4, 2/4 and then 10-5 in the match tiebreak.
Next up were the best team – Hertfordshire who had two very strong players at the top end. Natasha played against Indianna Spink who has played for GB and lost 1/4, 1/4 but played well. Sama Malikm then played Mineli Cooray and again played some good tennis but lost 1/4. 2/4. Megan Carmichael then played at number 3 and won 4/2, 4/1 against Rebecca Ahearne-Smith. The Natasha and Chaaya then played doubles against Indianna and Mineli lost the first set 2/4, but then stormed back to take the second 4/1 but narrowly lost the tie break 5-10. This meant Herts won 3-1 overall.
On the second day the girls played a Suffolk team who were strengthened with the powerful Sofia Khalyaeva playing at number 2. Natasha Scott put up a good fight against Harriet Petley and had her chances but eventually lost 2/4, 2/4. Sama was over powered by Sofia and lost 0/4, 1/4. Megan playing at three again beat Macy Hendin-Walker 4/0, 4/0. In the doubles Natasha and Chaaya had a close match against Harriet and Sofia but narrowly lost 2/4, 3/5 to give Suffolk a 3-1 overall win.
The last match to play was the doubles against Norfolk carried over from the Saturday. Due to rain the girls only played a tiebreak to 10 points and Natasha and Chaaya lost 5-10 to Monica and Emily. The match went into a tie break shoot out as the score was 2 matches each and again the same girls played and unfortunately it was an identical score to Norfolk 10-5!! So again Cambridgeshire lost 2-3.
Hopefully a lot was learned from the experience and three of the players are still eligible for next year where we will be anticipating a higher finish!
Good effort girls though.
Sue Rich – Captain.