Durham and Cleveland Under 18 County Cup team have gained promotion after winning in the County Cup.
From several months of successful county training squads a team of 7 players was picked. With a mixture of experienced players and Nicola Tweedy making her debut the team faced a though challenge after their promotion to division 3 last year.
The first day the team played Derbyshire and got off to a great start going 3-1 up after the first two rounds of singles matches, with Yasmin, Iona, and Charlotte winning 3 close matches, while Beth fought hard but lost out to experience. Both Farah and Caitlin won comfortably and impressively.
D&C won all 3 doubles leaving the end result 8-1 in our favor.
Staffordshire were the next opponents for the girls on day 2. Nicola replaced Beth in the singles line up but after some fantastic matches Nicola, Iona, Yasmin and Caitlin all lost their singles while Farah and Charlotte won to keep us in the tie 2-4 down after all the singles. With the odds against the girls they all worked hard and played some solid doubles to pull out 3 great victories and the match 5-4.
On the final day the 2 teams who had won both their matches faced off together, D&C against Cambridgeshire, who on paper were a stronger team than us. With some great tennis on show we were all square after the singles with Farah, Charlotte and Yasmin winning, while Nicola, Iona and Caitlin unlucky in their matches.
The first doubles was crucial and Iona and Yasmin played a fantastic match to win the third set tie-break to take us 4-3 up. Farah and Beth also played a great tactical match to win and give us the victory over Cambridgeshire and promotion for the second year running up into division 2.
The whole team played with great determination and fight throughout the weekend and thoroughly deserved their promotion- division 1 here we come !!
Team :
Caitlin Hindmarsh
Farah Aziz
Charlotte Derbyshire
Iona Amos
YasminTanfield
Bethany Smiles
Nicola Tweedy