This event was held at Eden LTC in Carlisle on the same weekend as the women’s and men’s singles finals at Wimbledon! Both the girls’ and boys’ events saw keenly and closely contested matches throughout the weekend with high levels of skill and commitment on display. The players had qualified for the county finals by either winning or coming runner-up, in their local club or school events.
Saturday morning saw the girls take to the courts where the final was contested between the two Chatsworth LTC qualifiers and top seeds, Rachel Bell and Sophie Cairns. Despite some excellent retrieval work from Rachel, Sophie’s big serve and heavy ground strokes won the day 4-0 4-1.
Sunday morning was the turn of the boys and was greeted with heavy rain showers for a couple of hours! Fortunately the two recently resurfaced artificial grass courts allowed play to resume quickly and after two closely contested semi-finals the top two seeds, James Griffin from Heversham and Milnthorpe LTC and Louis Pickering from Keswick School met in the final. This was another high quality and closely contested affair watched by most of the other players, that resulted in James Griffin winning 4-2 4-2.
Both Sophie and James will now represent Cumbria at the HSBC Road to Wimbledon national finals at the famous grass courts of SW19 in mid-August. We wish them and their families an enjoyable week’s experience.