Cambridgeshire girls team of Sophie and Anneka Watts, Victoria Nicholas, Alice McGee, EIlish Mackie and Stella Gordon and reserves Sophia Rolt and Zoe Douglas played in Group 2 in the Aegon County Cup from the 4 to 6th March in Manchester.
The girls played a strong North of Scotland team on the Friday. Stella Gordon got the team off to a good start at number 6 with a straight sets win over her opposite number and despite some close sets neither Eilish Mackie or Alice McGee could produce a win. The top three players Sophie Watts, Anneka Watts and Vicky Nicholas faced tough opposition Joanna Henderson, Morven Mcculloch and Alice Keddie respectively and despite some gutsy play none could quite clinch a win. The top doubles of Sophie Watts and Vicky Nicholas lost narrowly to Henderson and Mcculloch 3/6, 6/1 and then 5 – 10 in the match tie break and third pair of Alice McGee and Stella Gordon also lost 5 – 10 in the match tie-beak. The overall result being a 8-1 to the North of Scotland.
On the Saturday the girls played Lancashire and performed well in this match and despite losing overall 3 matches to 6 the score could just as easily have been 5-4 to Cambridgeshire. Stella Gordon and Eilish Mackie got the team off to a good start both winning their singles at 6 and 5. Alice McGee had a very hard match against Beth Askew – a former nationals winner before Vicky Nicholas got a good result against Natalie Wall winning 6/4, 6/3. This left the team 3 matches to 1 up. Anneka Watts lost fairly easily but Sophie had a very good match against Amy Askew only going down in the third set. With the match tied at 3 rubbers all it was all down to the doubles. Unfortunately Alice McGee and Zoe Douglas lost 10 – 6 in the third set match tie break and in a great match between the first pairs Sophie Watts and Vicky Nicholas just lost out 10 -7 in the third set tie break to Amy Askew and Sabrina Federici.
On the final day Cambs needed to win 8 matches to 1 to stay in the group! The singles resulted in Hampshire and Isle of Wight taking a 5 matches to 1 lead, Alice Mcgee lost in three tight sets and the only win came from Sophie Watts at number one over Taro Keens.
The doubles still had to be played as this may have affected the outcome of the team to be promoted. Anneka Watts and Eilish Mackie lost in the third set tie-break and the day finished on a win as Sophie Watts and Vicky Nicholas beat Hampshire’s top pair 6/4, 6/2.
The team will play in Group 3 next year – in the mean time they will practice a lot of match tie breaks to ensure we don’t have a 5 to 0 reverse next time!!