For three young 18&Under players, this weekend marked their senior team debut and Captain Justin Kraushar was impressed by their performance which he felt bodes well for the future.
Justin said, " The team for this event was very young with 3 players making their debut, all under 18. I managed to still incorporate a mix of experienced players, albeit it still 27 and under.
We were in a tough group with Bedfordshire, Oxfordshire and Hereford & Worcestershire.
We had a tough fought match on day 1 against Bedfordshire. We went 2-0 up after the first round with a remarkable debut by Patrick Daykin who was 5-1 down in the 3rd set and managed to win 7-6 again being 5-2 down in the final set tiebreak. Rhys Dunford won in a more comfortable match 2&4. This is where the Beds team managed to get a strangle hold on the tie as all the match ups, in rankings, were in Bedfordshire’s favour. They made it count and ended up 4-2 after the singles. We managed to win 2 of the doubles to bring in a respectable 5-4 loss on day one.
Oxford on paper were a stronger proposition but we did have the addition of Andy Norton, who had been unable to attend on the Friday. This did help as it moved players down, but still the ratings were on the side of Oxford. This meant that we had Rhys at 6 and Oskar Wynne at number 5. We made the advantage count again going 2-0 up after the first round. We then had Alfie Flatters and 16 year old Erik Wilson playing higher ranked players. Erik played a really good first set against the experienced Oxford captain, but just fell short and the second set quickly went Oxford’s way. Experience really did win the day, but I think the result may well be different the next time they meet.
Then we had Andy Norton at 2 and Emerson at 1 against highly ranked and experienced players. Andy out powered his opponent very quickly but Emerson had the tough task of playing a 1.1, a player who a few years ago had won the British Tour Masters event. Emerson played well above his years and managed to win it 6-4 in the 3rd. This meant we held the 4-2 advantage after the singles. As Patrick missed out on the singles I had decided to bring him in with Buzzy Avis as the 3rd pair and they coped very well with the pressure and won their tie on a championship tiebreak. It turned out to be the decisive rubber as the other doubles went oxford’s way, so we had a big 5-4 win over Oxford.
This made things interesting going into day 3 with the possibility of us gaining promotion if we won 9-0 and Oxford won their match 5-4 or of Bedfordshire going up and us coming second or our final position could just be down to rubbers won. All to play for and again we went 2-0 up after round 1. Rhys manage to pull though a much tighter second set on a tie break but no such problems for Oskar who went through without the loss of a game. He was playing extremely well at this stage. We then went to Alfie and Erik. Alfie played very well and managed to get through with the loss of just one game but Erik was up against a player who played above himself and unfortunately went down in 2 sets. The other tie was 3-1 to Oxford at this stage.
Andy and Emerson then went on and both played well to take it to 5-1 to Devon. The tie was over for H&W, as they were relegated but the other tie made our rubbers count. Andy and Oskar teamed up again and Oskar was close to getting 2 rubbers for the loss of no games but it was not to be and they won 0&1. This was a very strong pair for us and one definitely in the mix for summer.
Patrick and Buzzy went on and all was going well when they were serving for the match but the experienced pair they were playing dug deep and managed to break and then take the next few games to level the match and then went on to take the champ tiebreak 10-7 which meant that we ended up winning 7-2. A very good score line in most situations. Unfortunately the other tie did us no favours with Oxford winning 5-4, thus the league table had Oxford promoted, Beds 2nd and Devon 3rd.
So close yet so far!!!
Thanks to Andy, Rhys, Alfie, Oskar and Emerson, our experienced players, for helping to create a great team atmosphere and spirit. I really think that all the young players will benefit from this event and become much stronger players in the future which looks bright for Devon. Well done Patrick, Erik and Buzzy."