The county finals of the HSBC Road to Wimbledon 2012 were held at Sunderland Tennis Centre over the weekend of the 7th and 8th July.
We had 21 boys and 9 girls taking part who had come through their club events. The clubs represented at the finals were Blaydon/Boldon, David Lloyd Teesside, Durham Archery, Eldon Grove, Virgin Active Wearside, New Blackwell/Wellfield, Saltburn, Shotley & Benfieldside, Sunderland Tennis Centre, Tennis World and Yarm. All registered clubs were invited to stage a minimum 5 player event for the age group 14 and under with the winner and runner up being invited to the county finals. Where clubs were struggling with numbers to host an event they merged with neighbouring clubs.
The girls event was played on Saturday. We had some great matches. Sam Cornelius (David Lloyd Teesside) was involved in a long match against Cressida Appleton (Durham Archery) with Sam being the eventual winner. Lois Page (Tennis World) also put up a brave fight against Melissa Lowe (David Lloyd Teesside) in the semi final with Melissa coming through 10-7 in a 3rd set match tiebreak. The final was contested between Melissa Lowe and Emily Sim (Tennis World) with Emily coming through 4-2, 4-1. Well done to all the girls who took part!
As there were so many boys a qualifying draw was held on Saturday with the main draw played on Sunday. We witnessed a titanic battle in the qualifying draw between John Calder (Sunderland TC) and Orin Varley which John eventually won 12-10 in the match tiebreak!
The four qualifiers who made it through to the main draw were Joshua Farmer (Tennis World), Daniel Graham(Blaydon), Matthew Hollingworth (Saltburn) and Callum Lovatt (Virgin Active Wearside). We had some exciting and close matches. Kyle Upton (Blaydon) narrowly beat Joshua Farmer 10-7 in a match tiebreak. We also had the battle of the Saltburn brothers with Matthew Hollingworth taking on brother Tom and emerging the winner in a very tight match. Matthew then had another close match in the semi against John Heppell (Durham Archery) which he won 5-3, 5-3 to take him into the final against Kyle Upton. This proved to be another tense match with great tennis being played by both players. Kyle eventually won through 5-3, 4-1.
Throughout the entire weekend the matches were played in a tremendous spirit so well done to all the players! Special mention should be made of the 4 boys who wanted to stay on and play in the consolation draw, namely Ross Harll, James Greenwood, Orin Varley and Saurabh Sharma. I would like to thank them for their enthusiasm in playing and patience in waiting for a court! Many thanks go to the coaches for staging the club events to give their players the opportunity to play in such a prestigious competition!
Finally good luck to Kyle and Emily in the finals and fingers crossed that our runners up, Matthew and Melissa also get the chance to go if selected amongst the best rated runners up!