The Hampshire & IOW Men were in Division 3 of the Aegon Winter County Cup held at Shrewsbury this year.
Representing Hampshire & IOW were: Karim Aouichaoui, Dan Cochrane, Adam Drysdale, Josh Girling, George Houghton, Liam Hignett, Jake Norris and Paul Scullard.
Division 3 is always a tough Division with at least one team at full strength which was Nottinghamshire.
Day 1 v North of Scotland
The team was: 1. Liam Hignett, 2. Adam Drysdale. 3. George Houghton. 4. Jake Norris, 5. Karim Aouichaoui. 6. Dan Cochrane
Doubles: 1. Scullard/Drysdale, 2. Aouichaoui/Houghton, 3. Cochrane/Norris
Everyone had a great day! We won 9-0. Just the start we needed. North of Scotland were weak but matches had to be won and the team did it with ease. It was nice for our juniors Liam and Jake to win on their debuts.
Day 2 v Sussex
The team was: 1. Adam Drysdale, 2. George Houghton, 3. Jake Norris, 4. Josh Girling, 5. Karim Aouichaoui, 6. Dan Cochrane
Doubles: 1. Scullard/Houghton, 2. Cochrane/Norris. 3. Aouichaoui/Girling
Again another great day! We won 8-1. Again everyone played well with Adam at one, the only loss in three sets. So now it was a straight shoot-out between us and Nottinghamshire for who goes up to Division 2.
Day 3 v Nottinghamshire
The team was: 1. Liam Hignett. 2. George Houghton. 3. Jake Norris. 4. Josh Girling. 5. Karim Aouichaoui, 6. Dan Cochrane
Doubles: 1. Scullard/Norris, 2. Cochrane/Houghton, 3. Aouichaoui/Girling
The match ups weren't great when we looked at them, Nottinghamshire were a strong side with 2 world ranked players. This was going to be a very tough match. And it didn't go well for us, 4-2 down after singles with only Dan and Karim winning, that meant we had to win all 3 doubles. We got the first 2 with Karim/Girling and Dan/George winning but Paul and Jake just couldn't get through their world ranked duo at no.1, so we went down 5-4, to stay in Division 3.
Again another good Winter Singles tournament though, professional approach, great attitude, quality tennis and great to see the youngsters come through, but we do miss the US college players against the best teams. Saying that though, everyone contributed to the team and the results.
Good team performance!
Julian Godfrey, Team Captain