Essex women over 35s spent a sun-filled weekend down at Devonshire Park. With a slightly depleted team, and battling a few injuries, sadly relegation was always a possibility. The opening match of the weekend against Somerset involved Lara Naqushbandi (making her debut appearance) narrowly losing a fantastic first set against possibly the steadiest person in the entire event. The second singles saw Nell Mead play against the number one from Somerset who really should still be on the professional tour. Despite some huge serves, and even bigger forehands, their number one was too strong for Nell. The doubles pairing of Sophie Cockell and Zoe Mellis played some great doubles with some impressive volley exchanges but narrowly lost both matches in third set championship tie breaks. With Lara and Nell also losing their doubles, it wasn’t the most successful start to the weekend but there had certainly been glimpses of brilliance and certainly potential to do better on Saturday and Sunday.
The weather was even hotter on Saturday for our match against Lancashire. Lara again opened the singles and despite battling hard in the second set, went down in straight sets. Zoe played the second singles and got off to a solid start before losing the first set 7-5, and then the second 6-2. So rather a tall order for our doubles pairing of the day, which was Sophie and Sarah Warner, who had travelled down for the day. They had a fantastic first match and won in straight sets pulling the match score back to 1-2. They then went on to win their second doubles in an enthralling third set championship tie break, but Essex having lost our other doubles earlier, lost the match 3-2.
With the entire team heading to the physio room Saturday afternoon, we managed to convince Caroline Varda to also make the day trip down to play our final match against Leicestershire on Sunday. After several hours of rain delay, Nell opened the singles. Playing conditions were very tricky with a damp court plus a swirling wind. Nell played a good match with some great rallies but their number two proved too strong. Then Caroline braved the number one singles playing a very in-form Ann Simpkin. Again played a good match but wasn’t quite able to bring home the win. With injuries rife and relegation inevitable, we conceded the final doubles (only 3 matches due to prolonged rain delay) so lost the match 3-0.
Despite the final result, we are determined to regroup and ensure we can put out our strongest team possible next year to get back up to group 2. It was a great weekend representing Essex, playing at Devonshire Park, staying in the Grand Hotel and seeing lots of old tennis friends. Thank you to Essex County LTA for supporting us to play in this event – and of course thank you to the players: Sophie Cockell, Nell Mead, Lara Naqushbandi, Sarah Warner and Caroline Varda.
Zoe Mellis
O35 Ladies Team Captain