With the whole event put at risk by the advent of yet more rain, there were anxious moments on the road to the team's eventual brilliant success.
The loss of Daniel Ahl and Gary Drake from last year’s team was balanced by the newly eligible Jamie Bartlett and Bruce Wheatley, fresh from strong performances for the open team in July. In addition, stalwarts Justin Kraushar, Pete Russell and Peter Wright all arrived fit and ready for three days of grass court tennis.
Friday WON v MIDDLESEX 3-0
Bruce started with a convincing singles win before Jamie battled for a hard-fought victory against Middlesex’s number one. Justin and Pete then teamed up for an impressive doubles win before the rain came. No more play was possible on the first day so Peter was unable to come in as a substitute.
Saturday VOID v YORKSHIRE 0-0
Jamie was unavailable on the middle day so there was an element of relief when the courts were declared unplayable. Friday’s win saw Devon as provisional group leaders but only on the percentage of games won. In addition, some groups did not have a complete set of results so our victory over Middlesex was in danger of being wiped.
Sunday WON v LINCOLNSHIRE 4-1
The team was back to full strength as the sun shone, enabling play to start a couple of hours behind schedule. It did not take long for Devon to race to a 3-0 lead, even more comfortably than on Friday. Peter was then able to play his first match of the weekend as a doubles replacement for Pete. Unfortunately, a narrow loss was the outcome but the other groups had made sufficient progress for the win over Middlesex to count. This meant that a win for the partnership of Jamie and Bruce would be enough to clinch promotion and the youngsters duly obliged.
Captain Dan Jones said, "The whole squad is already excited about the prospect of division one next year. Early indications are that Daniel Ahl, Gary Drake, Steven Wood and Oliver Harrision could all be available in addition to those above so it should be a very strong team."