February 26th – 28th the D&C Girls county team competed in Norwich in Group 4a of the 18&U County Cup. With a couple of the top players missing and a reasonably young team it was always going to be a challenge, and although the team ended up relegated there were some great performances over the weekend showing good signs for the future. We lost 7-2, 7-2 and 5-2 against Norfolk, Gloucestershire and Leicestershire respectively. On the first day Beth Laybourne played a great match to gain a straight sets win at number 3 and at number 1 Emily Sim fought incredibly hard for over 3 hours to win in 3 sets. We only just lost out on the number 1&2 doubles, narrowly losing in 3rd set match tie breaks. On day 2, after losing at 5&6 we managed to level the match at 2 all with wins and impressive performances from Beth Laybourne and Vaniya Moradi at 3&4. There were 2 tight first sets at number 1&2 singles but unfortunately they didn’t go our way. On day 3 it was a fight between us and Leicestershire to remain in group 4, we started off with 2 close matches for Halle Pringle and Paige Thomas-Cattermole at 5&6 but both went in Leicestershire’s favour along with the number 3 singles. Vaniya Moradi played another great match to come back from a set down to win at number 4 and Niamh Packer quickly gained a convincing win at number 2 to put us within 1 rubber of them at 3-2. Unfortunately their number 1 singles and number 3 doubles pair proved too strong and we ended up losing 5-2.
Although we finished in 4th place, the girls showed great team spirit and supported each other through the weekend and were a pleasure to take away, well done to the team Emily Sim, Niamh Packer, Beth Laybourne, Vaniya Moradi, Halle Pringle, Paige Thomas-Cattermole and Sophia Greystoke, we look forward to coming back stronger next year.