Last weekend saw our men’s and ladies’ teams doing battle at the AEGON Winter Indoor Inter County Cup.
The men were fortunate to have a home venue at the Tarka Tennis Centre in Barnstaple but work commitments, illness and injury saw late changes to the team. This did, however, give Oskar Wynne and Glen Richards the opportunity to make their debut.
Friday saw a disappointing start against what was a beatable Cornish team with the boys going down 3-6. In a tough match against Cambridge on Saturday Devon won only 2 of the singles rubbers but did better in the doubles but narrowly lost 4-5. Ultimately staying in the group or being relegated all came down to the exciting last doubles rubber against Somerset which despite a competitive battle, Devon lost 6-3, 7-6.
A second successive winter relegation was disappointing but all four counties were closely matched and credit goes to Oskar for a promising debut and to Justin for answering a last minute call to win both his doubles matches.
Team: Gary Drake, Stephen Knowles, Justin Kraushar, Josh Rees, Glen Richards, Dominic Stones, Bruce Wheatley, Steven Wood, Oskar Wynne.
A happier time was had by our ladies despite a long, long journey north to Sunderland. Ladies’ captain Lucie Ahl said, ‘The weekend went really well we managed to stay in Group 4A which was great. The girls did really well and it was great to see how much the younger players have improved over the last few years and also great that the older players are still keen to play. It's so important to make sure we keep players involved as well as mixing in the younger ones - tennis shouldn't just be about elite performance.'
Results:
Beat Lincolnshire 6-3, lost to East of Scotland 5-4, lost to Northumberland 5-2
Team: Lois Fletcher, Amanda Cox, Kendal Brown, Kate Brown, Nicola Broadbent, Karen Clarke, Lara Graney, Rachel Williams