With three players inside the top ten of the National leader board, on paper Dorset would have to fancy their chances of hopefully competing in a meaningful match on the final day of competition. The team orders for the weekend were to focus on working hard and respecting the opposition, our first opponents on day one were Buckinghamshire led by James Goodchild. Toby Samuel, playing at one singles set the early tone with a devastating 4-0, 4-0 win over Joel Good. Luca McManus and Alex Knox jones followed suit with impressive 4-0, 4-1 wins over Orlando Roberts and James Arnall respectively. Harrison MacDonald Taylor and Luca combined forces to complete the rout with a straight set win in the doubles.
With confidence high, the home county of Kent were up next. The energetic Jack Pilkington Jones, ranked 7th in the national leader board, offered some resistance to Toby but eventually fell 4-1 4-2 at one singles. Luca maintained his form dropping just two games against Archie Turner. Kent’s Liam Vincent came back from losing the first set 1-4 against Alex at three singles to turn the match on its head winning the second set 4-1. Alex regrouped mentally to turn the deciding match tiebreak in his favour winning 10 -3. Toby and Alex teamed up to complete another four match win.
Semi - finals the following day would pit us against the talented Sussex team under the guidance of Chris Colvin. The ever reliable Toby got the team off to a perfect start beating Alex Ellison, ranked 13th, for the loss of just one game. The momentum of the tie started to swing back when Sussex’s big hitting Lleyton Edwards came back after losing the first set 5-3 to win the second set 4-0 with some scintillating winners. Luca’s experience shone through in the tiebreak with Luca jumping out to an early lead which he maintained to win 10-5. Alex maintained Dorset’s 100% singles winning record with a controlled win over Toby Bloomfield at three singles. Toby and Luca teamed up for their first ever doubles match together with an impressive display without dropping a game.
After a lengthy wait to see who we would play in the final, Surrey came through the other semi - final in a tie break shoot out to beat Kent. Alex stepped up first and quickly dented Surrey’s optimism with a 4-2, 4-2 win over Harry Hewing. Luca McManus looked to be on cruise control on the other court winning the first set 4-1 before Max Basing (ranked 9th) showed off some of his magic with a wide array of shots to claw back the second set 2-4 to turn the tie on its head. Luca was able to build an early lead in the deciding tiebreak to lead 8-5. Basing then hit back to level at 8-8 but couldn’t stop the positive play of Luca who went on to win the next two points securing a 2-0 match lead with Toby up next. With confidence high, Toby produced a clinical performance to win 4-1, 4-0 to seal victory in the South East region stage.
Captain Shane Deacon said “This is my fourth year captaining the team and preparations for this event started last year with both Toby and Alex playing here last year. Luca came into the team and brought a great deal of positivity and big tennis. Alex was solid all week and was getting better every match. Toby led by example as our number 1 and Harrison, our reserve player summed up what our team is all about, teamwork. We will go to Bolton with confidence high and with the knowledge that we are a good team. If we can play as well as we did, have some luck go our way, we could come back a great team.”