Cambs qualified for the 14 and under Aegon County Cup Finals for the second year in a row thanks to a spirited team effort in the U14 County Cup qualifying stages. The team, of Yujiro Onuma, Zach Cox, Darius Fatemi-Ghomi, Leon Kewney and Rohan Iyengar beat Wiltshire, Somerset and then Gloucester in a closely fought group at Sutton Tennis Club over the Bank Holiday weekend.
The team, led by Yujiro Onuma at number 1 came through a close opening match against a spirited Wiltshire team. Leon Kewney and Darius Fatemi Ghomi - playing at 4 and 3 respectively got Cambs of to the perfect start with two convincing wins before the match got tense.
Yujiro Onuma lost his singles while Zach Cox, at number two was on court for over two and a half hours and with the match at 2-1 in rubbers, Zach’s match was vital. Zach stayed calm and mentally strong finally coming through 6/4 in the 3rd set while to take a very good 3/1 lead going into the doubles. Cambs boys were too strong in the doubles and Cambs won 5/1 but it could have been so different.
Next up was Somerset and it was a comfortable win, with Rohan Iyengar coming in for the doubles and Cambs turned in a 6/0 whitewash. It meant Cambs were to play Gloucester in the playoff to see who would reach the finals at Nottingham on 12th to 14th May. Again, Kewney and Fatemi Ghomi came through their tests with flying colours before Cox lost in straight sets.
It was Onuma’s turn to be on court for a long time and after winning a close first set on a tiebreak and leading 4/0 in the 2nd set, Yujiro allowed his opponent to come back and it was down to a match tiebreak. Yujiro showed some fantastic passion and it helped him come through in the tiebreak 10/7 to give us a healthy lead of 3/1 going into the two final doubles. Kewney and Fatemi-Ghomi teamed up in torrential rain to seal the win for a place in the National Finals at Nottingham.
It was a great weekend and captain Chris Johnson said “It was a very spirited performance from the team, and while on paper it looked quite straight forward we had to fight hard for a couple of those tight matches and it was great that the boys came through those two singles (Cox and Onuma) as it could have been different if we had gone into the doubles tied at two rubbers all. Most of these players played in the finals last year and so will have got some good experience and we are hoping that we can get Derrick Chen (unavailable this weekend) to boost our chances of success in the finals”.