Over a sun filled bank holiday weekend, 38 county teams took part in the 2017 over 35s at Devonshire Park in Eastbourne.
The weekend saw some fantastic tennis, lots of old friendly faces, one slightly dubious spectator and some particularly impressive tan lines.
Essex began the event with a match against Berkshire. Nell Mead playing the number two singles came up against a new comer to the event who delivered a faultless performance so Essex went 1-0 down. However, with Claire Frewer making a star appearance, and partnering our doubles specialist, Sophie Cockell, levelled the match at 1-1, leaving Zoe Mellis to battle out for the match. Off to a shaky start, and having saved a match point, Zoe had then two set points to even the set score. Sadly these weren’t converted and Essex lost 2-1.
Day two saw us play against Gloucestershire. Knowing they had lost the previous day 3-0 to Lincolnshire, we knew we must win to avoid relegation – so the pressure was on. Again Nell played first and battled long and hard to put us in the lead. Unfortunately, despite staying out on court in excess of two hours, in the boiling heat, Nell lost in a final set championship tie break. With Sarah Warner joining the team, her and Sophie took immediate control of the doubles and won fairly comfortably – again leaving Zoe to play the decider. Determined to improve on the previous days’ performance, Zoe manged to win in two sets, securing an Essex victory.
The final day saw us play Lincolnshire who were our strongest opponents – a 3-0 victory in our favour would have given us a chance of winning the group – although rather a tall order. We gave it our best shot, again Sophie and Sarah played brilliantly and won the doubles fixture but neither singles went our way meaning a 2-1 loss.
But we were delighted (and very relieved) to have avoided relegation. We remain in division 3 but with some new players qualifying to join our team next year, we’ll be back better and stronger in 2018.
Thanks as always to Essex County for supporting us to play this event – it is a fantastic weekend in Eastbourne and an honour to play for Essex.
Well done to the team:
Sophie Cockell, Nell Mead, Claire Frewer and Sarah Warner.
Thanks
Zoe Mellis/Ladies Over 35's Team Captain