Bournemouth’s highly-rated youngster Toby Samuel gave himself one more reason to smile in 2013 after returning victorious from the Surrey Winter County Tour 12 and under boys’ event at Virgin Active, Croydon.
Samuel, who earlier in 2013 visited Wimbledon during the Championships as part of the South West performance squad, successfully navigated through the quarter-finals and semi-finals, knocking out the draw’s second seed in the process, to reach the final.
In the title match he faced top seed Marcus Leong, Essex, after having comfortably beaten the number two seed Adam Walker, Kent, in the last four 4-0, 4-2 and Felix Brooke, Sussex, 4-0, 4-2 in the quarter-finals. The final was a close affair on paper with both players having conceded fewer than seven games in their two matches en route to the final.
The script played out accordingly with Samuel and Leong sharing the first two sets, forcing the match into a deciding champion’s tie-break. Of the two players, it was the Dorset youngster who came out the stronger in the breaker, after opening up a six point gap Samuel completed the win to take the match 4-1, 2-4, 10-3.
Click Here for more information on the Surrey Winter County Tour event
By Harry Lund
