The Hampshire & IOW Ladies team were contesting in Division 3B in Sunderland over the weekend 22nd - 24th November 2013.
The team was: Selina Briggs, Hannah Crawford, Debbie Hale, Christin Louw, Lisa Radford, Natalie Sayer, Zainab Williams, Alexia Yannaros
It was Selina, Zainab and Christin's first Senior County Cup appearance.
The Other Counties in our Division were: Durham and Cleveland, East of Scotland, Nottingham
The first day was against Durham and Cleveland and we had really good wins from Christin, Selina, Natalie and Lisa took us to 4-2 after the singles. The Durham and Cleveland team had some good doubles players which meant that our match went down to the final rubber which Lisa and Natalie managed to win in the 3rd set tie break. Final score 5-4 to Hampshire
Day 2 we were against East of Scotland and having faced East of Scotland in the summer, we knew they were a tough side. Christin narrowly lost in a tough 3 setter, and Zainab nearly pulled back the second set after a very tough 1st, however in the end our singles wins came from Selina and Natalie (although special mention should be made regarding the monumental and high quality match Lisa had, narrowly losing a 3 hour 3 setter match).
Somehow Lisa managed to carry straight on with Natalie to win the only doubles match, which took the end of day result to 6-3 to the East of Scotland.
The final day was against Nottingham who had won all their previous matches so we were expecting a tough day and by the end of the singles we we're 5-1 and the match had gone to Nottingham. However as the other counties had not finished and there were still live doubles matches to play to ensure we stayed up in Division 3. Both Debbie and Natalie, and Hannah and Alexia played really well to win their matches in 3rd set tie break which took our result to 5-3. By this time the other matches had finished and we had managed to avoid relegation.
A really good team effort, with a young team. Special mention should be made for Natalie who won 6 out of 6 matches.
Nottingham won the group, and Durham and Cleveland got relegated.
Sue Espley, Ladies County Captain