Derbyshire quartet of George Finney, Christian Mills, Frazer Shipstone and Zak Wright lost to strong sides from Yorkshire and Cheshire but played some great tennis to beat Cumbria and Lancashire to clinch 3rd place in Area 8 of the 10&U County Cup Competition.
The boys started their campaign against Cumbria. George Finney kicked the team off with an excellent straight sets win over the Cumbrian No 1 , followed by Christian Mills winning his first match, which put Derbys in a strong position after the first 2 rubbers. Frazer Shipstone lost a marathon match in 3 very closely contested sets against their No 3. The doubles was then cancelled due to bad weather, which therefore gave Derbys a 2 - 1 victory. The second match saw Derbyshire take on a very strong Yorkshire side, who took all of the 3 singles rubbers. Again the weather forced cancellation of the doubles and so Yorks registered a 3 - 0 win.
Derbyshire's 1st match on day 2 was against a highly rated Cheshire side. George and Christian both lost their singles, but Frazer played some superb tennis to take the final singles rubber. Unfortunately the Cheshire doubles pairing proved too strong and they ran out 3 -1 winners.
Derbys final match of the day became a straight 3rd/4th place shoot out. In the singles both George and Zak put up a good fight but narrowly lost out, however Christian then registered a comfortable straight stes win thus making the doubles a key match. Christian and Zak played well to win the doubles and force an overall tie break shoot out, they then repeated their success in the deciding tie break to give Derbyshire a well earned 3rd place in the group.
Team captain Chris Martin said " The whole team showed a great team ethic and behaved superbly both on and off the court"