The Cambridge Club players featured heavily in the County Finals of the Road to Wimbledon played at Hills Road Sports and Tennis Centre last weekend.
Any player who is 14 and under and has a rating of 7.1 to 10.2 (on 1st April) is eligible to play in their Club tournament. The winner and runner up of each Club tournament is then invited to play in the County Finals and the winner of the County Finals gets invited to play at Wimbledon.
The County finals were contested over the Saturday and Sunday and saw 18 boys and 14 girls contest these.
The younger boys performed exceptionally well with Huntingdon’s Dougie McKee beating fourth seed Daniel Wortley (Virgin Active) 6/7, 6/1, 10-3 in the quarter finals and then beating top seed Daniel Fielding 6/3, 6/2 in the semi-finals. In the bottom half of the draw third seed Fabio Nestola (Cambridge Club) beat second seed Isaac Rowles (Virgin Active) 6/3, 6/2.
In the final Fabio Nestola beat Dougie Mckee with some excellent retrieving and smart play to take the County title 6-0, 6-2 and qualify to play at Wimbledon in August.
In the girls event top seed Chaaya Malik (Cambridge Club) cruised through to the final without dropping a game. In the bottom half of the draw the best match was the semi-final between Lydia Sivirentsava (Huntingdon) and Charlotte Laing (Cambridge Club) which second seed Charlotte won 7-6, 6-4. This was an intriguing match with the attacking play from Charlotte up against the excellent retrieving from Lydia.
The girls final was the best match of the tournament and such a close affair that neither player deserved to lose. Eventually Charlotte pulled through in the match tie break winning 6-4, 3-6, 10-7.
Charlotte will join Fabio at Wimbledon in August.
Good luck to both players and enjoy the experience.